Newbie Investor From Gatlinburg, Tennessee

[Matthew Maloney]

Hello everyone. I hope you all have had a great Thanksgiving so far. Like the title says, I am from the Gatlinburg area in East Tennessee. I have wanted to get into real estate investing for close to 20 years but just never found the right time (as if there is one). I even bought the Carlton Sheets system back in the early 90's. I am looking into the future and what I see is a number of rental homes and overnight rental cabins in my portfolio that are paid for. All of course residing inside of an LLC in Trust or even FLP. My wife is a Realtor in the area and has been for 10 years. Pretty good hook up huh :) She has a plethora of contacts in the industry that have been tried an vetted over the last 10 years so much of that leg work is already done. My biggest questions currently are what and when the right time is. What financial preparations should I make. Minimize as much debt as possible? Get rid of car payments? Does it matter? Anyway, glad to be here and look forward to becoming part of the community.