New Member (Upper Marlboro, MD)

[James Johnson]

I'm new to the community and I just wanted to introduce myself... My name is James and I'm from Upper Marlboro, Maryland.  I've been lurking on the website for quite some time now just soaking up information. I am currently finishing my Masters and work as a data analyst in DC.  March 2014, I became a first time home buyer and recently I've been thinking about investing in real estate. My goal is to learn as much as I can about the various options in real estate investing so that I can start generating passive income. 

Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

[Elizabeth Colegrove]

Welcome to Biggerpockets!

You found the place to be! You will find no better place to build a solid platform than bigger pockets. The one thing we all agree up on is that we invest in real estate. Beyond that everyone has a different niche!

We are buy and hold investors who invest in class A properties self-managing from a distance while working full time. We got started at 23 right out of my MBA program :) We bought a primary property and fixed it up. It worked out so well, that the bug bit us and we have investing ever since.

 Our goal is to build a portfolio or as I say an "empire" of passive income to provide the cash flow needed for early retire in 15 years, wo we do work on furthering our careers. We live very frugally allowing us to live off of one income and save the other. We have further our career and used the W2 income to leverage our real estate portfolio.

I highly recommend you also check out- the blogs, forums and listen to the podcasts. I talk about our experience in self-managing, buy and holds and investing in our niche in podcast 103. If you see a post you enjoy check out the persons signature. As many of us have created resources around our niche (websites, blogs, etc) so checking out the signature is a great to get more information. Make sure you don't miss out on networking is by filling out your signature, profile and pming people with questions.

Look forward to seeing you around! Let me know if I can help! Good luck!!!