New Member from Dayton, Ohio area

[Ryan Provost]

Hi all!

Wow, what an awesome community here. I have been browsing the site for a couple of weeks and I am definitely interested in this forum.

A little about me: I'm in my mid-20's, married no kids, and I work in Acquisitions for the federal government. I don't have any experience personally in real estate investment yet (everything thus far has been peer-to-peer lending, 401k, and mutual funds), but my dad has bought and successfully flipped a couple of houses now and so I was intrigued.

Here's where people might caution me, and I'm aware of it: As of now, I have pulled most of my investments (minus my 401k) to put a largish down-payment on my personal home that I just purchased... I kind of wish I did not do that looking back on it. I have never been a fan of the 401k route personally, other than I receive some employer matching. I am considering pulling the money from my 401k that I currently have saved, invest it elsewhere for the next year or so, and then re-direct the percentage of my income that I was putting into retirement towards saving for a down payment for a rental property.

In the future, I am interested in possibly flipping houses, but I'd like to wait until I have a few of cash flowing rental properties first.

Has anyone else on here taken out their 401k savings to invest primarily in real estate? I know that this might be a naïve move, however, I'm just looking for opinions. Thanks in advance for anyone's advice!