Hello all, I am small town living in Herington, Kansas!

[Trevis Kelley]

Hi!  My name is Trevis.  I am a disabled veteran looking to jump on the landlording bandwagon!  What I mean by that is, I want to invest in rental properties to create positive cashflows.  I would like to start out with single family houses, but I might eventually move on to multi-family units or even apartment complexes if things go well.  I am sure they will with you guys around!  I don't think that commercial real estate would be interesting to me, but check back with me in 10 years, because who knows.  Right now, though, the single family properties are right up my alley.

Back in 2002, I was living in a run-down-trailer-converted-to-a-house.  I was making minimum wage with my wife, and we were barely making ends meet (raising a child as well).  Don't ask me where all the money was going, because I don't know - I didn't budget back then.  If the money was in the account, we spent it.  I decided by 2004 that the lifestyle I was leading was not the one I wanted to be leading, and looked for a way out.  The US Air Force was hiring for tech jobs, and I was a tech nerd.  Seemed like a perfect fit.  So, I joined, and for 8 1/2 years made better money than I should have been allowed to make for the job I was doing.  I only deployed once, and that was to cushy place in Qatar.  We had swimming pools and indoor gyms.  Don't get me wrong - the job we were doing there at the time was absolutely vital, but the accomodations were nice.

Long story short (too late, right?), I was medically discharged from the military.  Bad knees, bad back, and arthritis in the hands had plagued me for a while, but I pushed through in order to keep my sweet military job.  Now, I had a new problem - my heart.  That one couldn't be ignored, so here I am.  Recently discharged and sitting around the house unable to work.  I have a ton of time on my hands, plenty of income to cover my bills and save, and a drive to work on something of my own.  I have come a long way from those days in 2002, but I have a long way to go before I get to where I want to be.

Where do I want to be? I want to replace my wife's working income. I want to replace my VA and SSDI income. I want to be able to cover all of my bills from my sweet portfolio of stocks, bonds, and real estate.

Why am I on this site in particular?  Because I love real estate.  In 2002, I purchased that house I was living in.  I loved the process so much, I repeated it again in 2007.  After a realization in 2009 that I didn't know what I was doing and relied on the realtor too much, I decided to do some reading on how to buy a house.  After being booted from the military in 2012, I felt like I knew enough to make a great primary home purchase in Herington, KS.  This purchase is the first one that has turned out well for me, and I know that it was because I am now better educated.  So, before I go out into the world to invest in real estate, I want to be well educated.  I have heard all kinds of things, but I would like to get it from the horses mouth.

How did I find this site?  I was in the Mr. Money Mustache forum, reading about others talking about this site.  Sounded great, so here I am.  I am a recently converted Mustachian, and am loving the life so far - still have a long way to go, though.

I must say that I am in the middle of reading this site's beginner's guide.  It has been great.  The mentor section had me chuckling, though, because when it talks about having to work nights and weekends on real estate, I got excited and said that I would do that without a problem.  The very thought of doing real estate deals makes me very excited and ready to jump into it, but I am letting my brain rule my actions when it comes to actually doing it.  It has to be right, the numbers must fit, and I really have to know what I am doing.

I cannot wait to meet you all!  This seems like a really great place to be!

Trevis Kelley