New from the South

[Stephen Davis]

Hi all, I'm new here. I'm also new to REI. So new, in fact, that I'm still in the planning stages. For my regular 9-5, I am the safety manager for a manufacturing facility. I have always been fascinated by financial planning and I would like to be able to retire from my regular 9-5 within ten years and work for myself. I currently live in a home on three acres in Deep South Alabama- Enterprise to be exact. I also own a house just outside of Atlanta. My wife and I are in the process of changing jobs and plan to move into the Atlanta house by the end of the year. The house we are in now (Deep South Alabama house), I'm thinking about using it as a rental property until the mortgage is paid off. At that point, I intend to sell it and purchase another (maybe more than one?) investment property closer to the Atlanta area and possibly expand from there. I have also considered building a second house on the Alabama property to rent out, or possibly just selling some of the land around the AL house to pay off that mortgage faster. Lots of variables. I also enjoy the research and investing in stocks and mutual funds, but I do not consider myself a finance expert. I'm looking forward to learning from some of you folks here, and maybe I'll be able to contribute something myself.