New investor in western Chicago suburbs!

[Colin Buckley]

Hello everybody.  My name is Colin and I'm a newbie to investing, but I've been learning a lot from BiggerPockets.  I already have one small 1 bedroom rental property with a tenant in place but I plan on moving back into the house next year.

I have already learned a lot from the blog and podcast, and hope to find even more on the forums here.  Over the next few years I want to accumulate a few more buy-and-holds in the area, and eventually outside my area for geographical diversification.  I hope to eventually replace my paycheck with passive real estate income.

My income right now is not all that high, so even with a savings rate north of 30% it will take me a while to come up with cash for down payments, so I've thought about pursuing creative financing to an extent, which I still need to research.

Also, I've thought of dabbling in wholesaling via Driving for Dollars to generate extra income towards down payments on buy-and-holds.  Driving for Dollars could also help me locate cheap buy-and-holds needing a little work.

I've already done some research into the house next door to my current rental, since the owner has done nothing to it since it was purchased almost two years ago, it has been empty, and he is late on property taxes.  I've thought of trying to make that my next deal.

Anyway, I'm happy to be here and hope to learn a lot!  Thanks for reading!