Newbie from Albany, NY

[Jason Pettigrew]

Hello All,

My name is Jason Pettigrew, I am from Albany, New York area, residing about 10 minutes outside the city. I am aspiring to become a full time real estate investor, primarily focusing on fix and flip properties. 

A little bit about myself...I've held various construction positions starting when I was a teenager through my college years and beyond. I started working my summers with a developers doing odd work, it varied from sweeping and cleaning homes, to installing siding, roofs, windows, you name it, I did it. I also worked 2 years as an electricians helper during college and painted professionally for 3.5 years. One day I stopped and decided to focus on all the money I put into a college degree and started a career in graphic design, while also continuing any type of side work I could get my hands on for extra cash. Today I manage a small group for a major media outlet and still look get my hands dirty from time to time.    

My experience in real estate came last year when my house had an electrical fire. Its unfortunate but was great experience. The electrical fire was small, but produced a ton of smoke that damaged everything in the home. I will not go into my sob story, but if wish to hear it I will post it later. We used a public adjuster to help negotiate with the insurance company. This guy was great, he took care of everything. The only thing we had to do was look for a place to stay. 

Long story short, I ended up GC'ing the job because of contractors looking to profit from our situation. The numbers did not add up with what they were trying to sell. While working a full time job and sleeping 4 hours a day I was at my house managing and putting in a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Luckily my hours started late in the afternoons at the time, so I was able to be at the house during the day making sure things were getting done. I set up a budget, a time line and learned a lot of hard lessons. The experience was invaluable in my opinion. It was worth it!! I'm not if this is the place to go into detail, but will make a point  to find the right forum to share my experience. 

What I am looking to do, while it fresh in my blood is to venture out and start a business fixing and flipping. I have the skill set, I have the drive, I have the ambition, oh and I have the tools to make it happen, hehe!!! I offer a great deal in these areas, but its the capital that I'm currently doing my due diligence on. My goal is to network through my local REI club and educate myself on raising capital so I can do 2-3 flips this upcoming year(2015). I am most interested in partnering up with an active flipper who can mentor to get a better handle on the business. Eventually I would like to quite my day job, build my my net worth and my EMPIRE, buh ah ha ha(pinky hanging to the side of my mouth like Dr Evil)!!! Seriously though, I am an extremely motivated person!!! This is going to happen!!!

CHEERS!!!

[Cherly Lare]

@Jason Pettigrew 

Welcome! My husband and I are new real estate investors as well. We are accountants ready to buy & hold SFH and multifamilies in the capital region. We are in the process of forming our business and our support group. I attended AIN meeting in October and it as great. I plan to be there in November as well.

We are trying to figure out our finances to start buying properties in 2015. We have really good credit but no liquid assets (cash) to use for downpayment...

We have also debated obtaining the real estate license. We have full time jobs so we are not sure if we would be able to accommodate working as a realtor with a brokerage part time. But we would love access to the MLS and submitting our own offers ????

I hope we connect in the future. Good luck!