New to REI

[Dylan Robinson]

Hey everyone,

My name's Dylan, I've been serving active duty Army SOF for the last 5-6 years, and as the title says I'm new to real estate investing, and I'm ready to get started. A little about me: I grew up in Northern Virginia, up in Alexandria, and really loved the area. Honestly, I'm hoping to move back there in the near future - but that's for another time. Anyway, I graduated from Old Dominion University with a B.s. in Finance back in 2017, and that was really my first introduction to the idea of REI. Unfortunately, at the time, and for the years that followed, I was preoccupied with the notion that stocks were the superior investment vehicle. I then spent a majority of my free time learning as much as I could on the different styles and strategies that have been utilized in the past, reading everything from Lynch's One Up on Wall Street to Graham's Security Analysis, to learning how to build out financial models in excel. It wasn't until this past summer that it really clicked for me just how powerful the REI model can be, and so I've been reading, listening, consuming as much information as I can over the last few months, and I'm just ready to start making things happen.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to meeting more of the community, to continue learning and building relationships with as many of you as I can. I’m really interested in pursuing the out-of-state investment strategy (currently reading David Greene’s Long-Distance Real Estate Investing), and I’d love to meet and connect with some investors experienced with this model.

I can’t give BP enough credit as you guys have been instrumental in my education thus far, and I can’t wait to see where this goes.

[Scott Allen]

@Dylan Robinson Welcome to BiggerPockets. Definitely take advantage of your VA loan on your first one. You can do as little as 0% down and maybe even get money back at closing if you can implement seller credits into your offer during the inspection period or prior to going in contract. If you can use it to house hack a duplex, triplex, our fourplex to start out somewhere you wouldn't mind living - you'll learn much more quickly. Treat it like a stepping stone.