Newbie from Montreal, Canada

[David Laplante]

Hello BP Community!

I am from Montreal, Canada. More precisely in Brossard. I am 38 and working as an IT consultant.

My wife and I bought our first triplex 2.5 years ago after realizing that we would not get very far by just saving our money for retirement. We had to do something. My brother had already bought a triplex a few years back and when I was young my father had bought a 16 appartment complex but only kept it for 2 years.

After talking to both and reading my books on the subject, we thought we should give it at least a try and if we don't like it, we could always sell the property and move on.

2 years after buying our first, we decided it was well worth it and started looking for a second one. This time, our research took us to a 5 appartment building about 2 minutes walking distance from the first one! We ran our numbers and decided to jump in.

When I realized how the previous owner had set things up, I quickly realized that, even though my first one was not such a pain, things could be WAAAAY better than I thought! We've had this 2nd one for 7 months now and we never got any phone calls for anything and we even get paid in advance!

That is when I realized that I should maybe seek to get better informed and I started to look for a forum where to post questions to other investors like me.

So here I am! I looked for similar forums in my area but although there are groups and associations, none seem to have forums like this one.

My current job is IT consultant in the Business Intelligence domain. We build complex analysis applications for businesses so that they can take better and faster decisions by brigning to light their information in a easy to play with model. (of course, I use this know-how to build my self the same thing for my investments :) )

Recently, the though has been in my mind that maybe, just maybe, if I keep at it, either me or my wife (or both!) could retire early. After reading quite a bit of posts here and elsewhere and reading many books, that though keeps growing!

I always had a feel for being my own boss but am lacking knowledge in area necessary to have a full blown company so I resorted to being an IT consultant (half way to being my own boss). Taking care of the 2 properties I already have, I like it! I like it a lot and I find I am suprised by structure and the help I can get in areas I am not confortable with (mainly accounting).

My hopes, then are to, non-aggresively for now, start buying more properties and educate myself that way through hand-ons practice. Then, when I get to renew my first lease (due in 2.5 years) to refinance that building and buy another one.

I am very glad to have found this site and am looking forward to connecting with the most people I can especially if in my area!

David