New Member (Iowa)

[Ernest McGachey]

I am Paul McGachey and am new to Bigger Pockets and real estate. I am 29 and have been in the Air Force over 8 years. I live in Germany but am trying to move back home to Iowa to be closer to my son who lives in SE Iowa. It will be a minimum of a year before I can get out of the Air Force and move back home. During this next year or more, I am going to educate myself about business and real estate. I am also going to study real estate markets in Iowa in an attempt to locate a the right market for me to move to when I get back home.

I have found that a focused effort is much more effective than blindly throwing darts. In the last 8 years I have become disconnected with the markets in Iowa but even if I had lived in Iowa, I don’t think I would know what the characteristics of a good real estate market would be. Can any of the investors in Iowa help me narrow my scope of focus during my efforts to find a good market to research and study? And can you give any good advice as to where to start with my real estate education?

These are some of the steps I have taken.

Books I have read

- Rich Dad Poor Dad

- Cashflow Quadrant

- Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing

- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

- Investing in Duplexes, Triplexes & Quads (need to read again)

- BiggerPockets: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide ( Reading now)

- What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know about Cash Flow (Reading now)

Books on the reading list

- Do Less and Achieve More

- The Millionaire Next Door

- The 8th Habit

- The Edge

- Real Estate Riches

- Creating Weather

- Flip by Rick Villani & Clay Davis

- Think and Grow Rich

I am also listening to the BiggerPockets podcast and a few others. I am tring to obtain the vocabulary.

I am working on my mission statement, short-term goals and long term goals. I have a very good start and am refining them everyday. I have very little money saved and don’t have the best credit. The good news is that I have spent the last 8 years paying off my debt and only have a car loan. However, I am newly married and am now helping to pay off my wife's debt which is less than $10K. I have learned from my past and am going to pay myself first this time. I am aware that I am not going to have a lot of money and will need to use creative financing by leveraging my time and the knowledge I am going to gain in real estate.

I could say a lot more but this post is starting to get long. Any advice is greatly appreciated

Respectfully

Paul