Bostonian checking in!

[Kavi S.]

Hey everyone! 

I've been zillow lusting over properties for roughly 6 months, knowing I need a change, and I finally sent off a message to a realtor who I had show me the cheapest 3 bedroom house in town. Little did I know at the time I was lucky to find an agent who's good with investors, we've checked out quite a few places since. After the first house, he actually recommended I sign up here, but I was a little bit shy about the types of folks I was afraid I was going to run into. Good thing I started listening to the podcast and realized you guys are all friendly - have you guys seen the rest of the internet? I'm a software engineer by trade, and asking a question on those forums is... well... rough.

Anyways, my name's Kavi, I actually don't live in Boston, and my favorite color is blue. I'm thinking that I'm looking to get into the Boston area, either to the west or north of the heart of the city. I work in Marlborough, and I'm trying to set myself up for a reverse commute (and work from home some days.) I'm an avid DIYer and I love to make things, so I'm really hoping to find a spot close to Artisan's Asylum in Somerville. Years of stocking up tools in my hometown of Milford led to me to realize that it just doesn't make sense to buy a 4 axis CNC machine for my garage, or most of the other things on the list. Could you guess that HGTV has been a motivator for me? When I was a kid, I woke up early to watch This Old House and I skipped the cartoons. I always wanted to "be a builder," until Monster Garage came out and I wanted to "be a metal builder." My younger self would be proud, I've done both now and my goal is to do both of those more often. 4 years of machining and welding in high school, and since I've gotten out, I've done minor renovations at home; repaired a lot of issues and refinished a basement including a brand new bathroom. I'm working on building a big 'ol 16x22 2-story shed out back now, and I love it. 

What I love the most is designing things though. I design software professionally, I design electronics, landscaping, layouts, wonky gadgets and anything that crosses my mind for fun. I want to do that with real estate eventually, that's my long term goal. I'll swing some hammers here and there but planning things is my strongest talent. Heh, even my software has to do with building - I design software for inspectional departments to track their workflow... Coming up on my 4 year anniversary with this company, I went from glorified data entry to leading the development team, so that's not such a bad thing. I started programming at 13 years old, so right on mini-me - you set me up! 

In the short term, though, you bet I'll be swinging hammers. I want to do some flips, but I also want to do some rental properties, and that culminates in wanting to buy a distressed property and fix it then rent it. I'm not sure if I'll live in it too, but if it was in Somerville, I surely would. I'm currently living at home with the folks and taking care of them, but I'm still young and I'm itching to start my life. In the back of my head I'd like to get the old man involved too, he's got dimensia and always NEEDS a something to be working on. Surely not the youngest on here, but 21 isn't a bad place to start! Another reason I'd like to move to Boston - there's a whole different breed of women out there getting swooped up and I'm not doing the swooping! :P  I travel a lot too, which is a personal win but a financial loss (I hardly have savings) and I'm thinking... maybe I want to travel and flip? Maybe I can do better with my money in a place cheaper than Massachusetts? There's just so many options!