New BP member from Chicago, Illinois

[Matt Engle]

Hello everyone! My name is Matt Engle. I am originally from Pennsylvania and moved to Chicago directly after college. I've been here for 3 years now working in the logistics industry and couldn't love this city more (even with the winters). I started getting interested in investing about a year ago listening to business and investing books on audible while working out and taking the bus to work. In that time, I stumbled upon the Bigger Pockets podcast and have made it through about 40 shows so far. At this point I've pondered how I would like being a flipper, wholesaler, or buy and hold investor and I've decided that buy and hold fits me the best. One of the podcasts I recently listened too said that everyone has an unfair advantage in real estate and I think that mine is my girlfriend. She works in property management and apartment leasing which I'd like to take advantage of when building my buy and hold portfolio. I'm finally at the point where I want to start looking for my first property so it was time that I get on the BP forums and start figuring out the action items I need to take to find my first deal. I tend to think big but if I want to get started anytime soon I know that I need to figure out the immediate actions I can take to get started. Right now my main priorities are to take current buy and hold investors in the Chicago area out to lunch to get some insight on the market along with any advice and cautionary tales of starting out in the Chicago market. I'm also looking for real estate agents and/or wholesalers that may be able to help me find my first deal. I know this post went on for a while but I am excited to jump into BP and take some action. This resource has already been invaluable to me.

-Matthew Engle

[Wendell De Guzman]

Welcome to BP @Matt Engle !

I am a very active investor and if you need help analyzing deals let me know. Since you want to do buy-and-hold, listen to my podcast interview as I reveal my worst investing mistake (I bought a 36-unit apartment building) and how I turned it around (by buying a 100+ unit apartment complex!). You will learn a ton and I hope you will not make the same mistakes I made. Here's the podcast:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2014/04/10/bp-podcast-065-creative-investing-wendell-de-guzman/

Also, you can learn a lot by following my weekly business update where I share with BP Nation what's going on with my real estate business. I share what's working, what's not...even stupid mistakes I still do to this day. Here:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/223/topics/121707-real-life-of-a-real-estate-investor

Lastly, since you want to buy-and-hold...you need to analyze your deals based on their cashflow. Here's a spreadsheet I made to help you:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/files/user/Mister4closure/file/wendells-simple-cashflow-analyzer