Newbie from Seattle, Washington

[Nghi Le]

Hi everyone!

My name is Nghi and my interest and drive for real estate investing spiked this month after attending a conference on it. I've always been interested in real estate but haven't had the funds, credit, or network of support I needed to gain confidence in starting this venture until now.

I'm 26 and currently work as an IT Consultant in the Information Management & Analytics world. I make decent money to support myself and my parents, but my long-term goal is be financially free, not have to work for someone else, and retire early, all so I can focus on my family and community and leave behind a legacy. I fully believe that real estate can accomplish this.

I don't have much experience in real estate other than being a first-time home buyer last year and renting out my parents' house (through a property management company) so they could come live with me and have some extra funds. I've been doing a ton of research on real estate investing (which brought me to BP) and am looking forward to my first (wholesale/rehab) deal, but not entirely sure how to find it. My hometown is in SW Seattle in the Burien / White Center area. I heard Seattle was a tough market, but I'm hoping to be able to find something in my area.

Thanks for taking the time to listen to my intro, and I hope to connect with many of you!

[Nghi Le]

Thank you everyone for the welcome, the advice, and the support!  And @Brandon Turner, it was especially nice to see you and Heather at today's meetup!  I was finally able to associate a face to the daily voice in my car :-)

I've setup a keyword alert for "Seattle" and "Washington" a couple of weeks ago and get so many results per day; I'm actually behind on catching up with them right now... as I mentioned to Brandon earlier, I had to deactivate one social network (Facebook) in order to gain more time to spend on another (Bigger Pockets).

I've yet to read the UBG.  I actually signed up and paid for one of those guru workshops and am still sifting through the material that they gave me.  It's funny because those gurus actually referred me to BiggerPockets as well.  I definitely don't think all gurus are bad, but you probably don't need to spend that much money to gain that kind of information.  But because of that guru, my fiancée and I got the push we needed to start our real estate business.  Now we just need to get that first deal!