New member from Virginia Beach, VA.

[Micheal Waldrup]

Hi Everyone!

I'm Micheal Waldrup. Active-Duty military, currently with 10 years of service in Nuclear Power. I'm due to get out in January of 2015 and plan to transition to a career doing freelance programming (which I already do).

My goals in real estate are to roll into buy/hold/rent and rehabs. I have little / no experience in real estate other than being a homeowner myself and having family who are agents.

While I enjoy the programming work I currently do, I find myself more and more into my business and real estate interests. I fully intend to close my first "deal", whatever it may be, before I get out of the military next January.

I plan on being around for a long time, and would love to start my real estate endeavors here in Eastern VA, especially VA Beach and surroundings. Seems like a complex market though with all of the military money around here.

I'd love to meet anyone from the area . I'm also very interested in hearing about local groups that meet or people who are just willing to share knowledge ( free lunch in it for you most likely :) ).

Can't wait to start interacting with everyone! I'll be around, reading -- more like devouring all of this information. See you around.

[Erin L.]

Welcome! I am also in Virginia Beach, a veteran with spouse still active. We own a duplex near Oceana and hope to do more in a few years. I'm open to other areas but the Virginia Beach market has been very good to us. Easy to get tenants that stay with the right property. Moving is stressful enough for military members so they tend to stay and not move for their whole tour. This forum is an incredible resource, enjoy and good luck! If you want to get together to talk sometime let me know, I handle finding tenants, leasing, money and general communication stuff, my husband handles all the rehab/repair DIY mostly so while not experts we do have some experience we don't mind sharing. (and stories, of course!)

[Micheal Waldrup]

Great @Erin L. ! Thank you. I will be sure to get in contact with you. My wife is also a Veteran, now a respiratory therapist. I plan to dig around here for a bit, then maybe I won't seem totally clueless in an actual discussion. :) Thanks for the welcome!

[Erin L.]

Everyone starts out clueless, and some just progress faster than others! We kind of "fell" into it and only have the one duplex, but we certainly learned some lessons over the past 10 years as we have renovated the whole thing DIY along with living in the duplex. I like to think that gave us a reality check and good perspective for the future on how much work a property might need and cost. We are transferring to MD at the end of summer but hope to be back in VB when that tour is over. We have managed to stay here for 14 years so far, and while we don't intend to retire here, the area has been good financially and we are happy with the schools for our kids.

[Brandon Turner]

Hey @Micheal Waldrup Thanks for introducing yourself! It's great to have you here! Don't miss The BiggerPockets Podcast - they are great for learning how others are finding success.

Also - here's a couple articles you might enjoy:

The 21 Best Real Estate Investing Books Ever

How to Rent Your House: The Definitive Step by Step Guide

Oh - and be sure to set up some Keyword Alerts- especially for "Virginia Beach" so you'll be notified when people mention it here in the forums.

Thanks again for introducing yourself!