New to everything ... sort of - long island, NY

[Nicholas DeLouisa Jr]

Hello everyone!

So I've been a member going on four years now.  Never even filled out my profile until recently.  I always had an interest in real estate, but at the time that I joined I was looking around for different types of investments.  Then I got sidetracked for a few years.  Some days ago, I had an interesting discussion with my brother-in-law.  Long story slightly less long, he wound up shadowing a new mentor for a weekend while the mentor made a deal, visited a few properties, and then took my brother-in-law to dinner and outlined his entire business.

With this story banging around in my mind, I decided that I'm ready and crazy excited to do this.  So, here I am, and I hope to meet some great people here.

A little about me, I work for NYC transit in the subway system, also an electrician on the side.  I go to school nights, and I'm applying for a position as an electrical instructor.  Planning a wedding for early next year.

All of that has me running kind of ragged.  However, school will be over in December, the wedding will be done mid February, and after that I won't know what to do with myself.

My main bare-bones goal in real estate investing is to supplement my retirement income.  I would like to do this using a buy-and-hold strategy.  However, my shoot-for-the-moon is to build a mini-empire.  I'm to start with residential buy-and-hold, and by the time I retire (nineteen years from now), I plan to make my investments large commercial/residential holdings.

The main issue I have right now is that I can't really afford to invest in anything too elaborate in the immediate area around my home.  I live on long island in NY, and even a cheap rehab in a decent town is going for more than I can spend.  I can't really afford a mortgage that high right now - not to mention coming up with the down-payment.  However, I do have some ideas about buying property in upstate NY, where a cheap rehab might go for less than a fifth of whatever I might find where I live.

I know there are ways to invest other than a mortgage, but I want to make sure that in the beginning one of my exit strategies will always be that I can get a mortgage.  So, I will have to invest from about five or six hours away, which obviously presents additional problems I will have to overcome.

Hmm, I think I said too much for an introduction.  Anyway, I hope to be participating here, and I can't wait to get started, even if that's just education for now.

-Nick

[Darren Sager]

Welcome to BP @Nicholas DeLouisa Jr ! Thanks for taking the time to introduce yourself after the four year hiatus!  And now that you're here we'd love to see you be an active member of the BP community so be sure to set up Keywords Alerts for your local area such as "Long Island" or "Syracuse" if you're looking to find potential opportunities for investing, education in a subject, or other members in your area. Use the Find Members area to network with other members who are local to you or are in an area you're wanting to invest in. Podcasts come out weekly and are great way to learn on the move. I find there's always a gold nuggets of information in each one and I go back to listen to a number of them multiple times.

If you appreciate a post that a fellow member put up responding to you be sure to say "Thank You!" by casting a vote for it.  If you think a response you read is good or answers another member's question well cast a vote for it.  It's our own version of liking something on Facebook provided you're familiar with that.  Simply click the box in the upper right corner of the post!

If you want to get a member's direct attention in a post you're writing first type an @ and then a ?, (example: @?) and then wait..................... (sometimes longer than you might expect), for their name to appear below where you're writing, then be sure to click on it.  IF it doesn't have their name highlighted in a blue background (like yours is above) it didn't work properly and you should try again (like what happened when you tried to do it for @Account Closed above ). This will send them an email or an alert notifying them that you've mentioned them. Those alerts can also be seen if you mouse over the "Inbox" on the upper right menu bar and scroll down.

And lastly I highly recommend becoming a Plus or Pro member of the site and take advantage of all that BP has to offer you.  It's like getting the keys to the kingdom. It will be one of the best investments you'll make when it comes your real estate investing.

Again welcome to Bigger Pockets!