New member from Bradenton/Sarasota!

[Christopher Albritton]

Hello everyone! My name is Christopher Albritton, and as the title suggests I'm from the Bradenton/Sarasota area (about an hour south of Tampa Bay, Florida). I am 19 yrs old, soon to be 20, and I am probably more excited about real estate investing than most other adults my age! Unfortunately I've little real world experience with real estate investing. Mostly everything I've done thus far is read, read, read. I've read books by Robert Kiyosaki and his advisors, such as "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", "The REAL Book of Real Estate", "The ABC's of Real Estate Investing", "Start Your Own Corporation", in the process of reading "Loopholes of Real Estate", and other books like "Buy It, Rent It, Profit!" by Bryan Chavis, "Investing in Duplexes, Triplexes, and Quads" by Larry Loftis, and so on. Currently, I am a student. I finished up my A.A. Degree at State College of Florida and have transferred to the University of Florida for a degree in General Business with a Major in Finance - this was the only degree I found at UF to be most closely related to real estate (short of their masters degree in real estate that I was unable to get into due to a low GMAT score). My goal in real estate is to buy and hold rental properties, and do something similar to what Brandon Turner described in his book, "7 Years to 7 Figure Wealth" - this is the epitome of what I want to do! And my "Why" for doing so is first and foremost for my family - my father has done A LOT to provide for me and to get me where I am today to provide our current lifestyle and to be able to financially support me while going to college, and I want to repay him by being able to retire him (he's currently 55, but at where we are currently I don't see him retiring anytime soon). My second "Why" is I do not want to be working a J.O.B. my entire life - I want to BE ABLE to retire if I so choose and I DO NOT want to be dependent upon income from my job. I want to be in control of my financial life, thereby giving me freedom to actually enjoy life! I welcome the chance to get to know as many of you as I can and to learning much more about real estate investing! If you've read this far thank you for taking some time to get to know me and I look forward to getting to know you!