New Member from Philly

[Andrew Jervis]

Hi All,

I have been a biggerpockets member for a number of months now but have yet to introduce myself to the biggerpockets community, so here goes...I am 26 years old and have resided(rent not own) in Philadelphia ever since graduating college in 2011, but also am familiar with the western suburbs as I grew up in the West Chester, PA area. About a year ago I finally realized my passion for real estate and have been reading/researching/browsing ever since. I have met a number of people and gone to a number of different real estate networking type events, attempting to learn as much as possible in as soon as possible. These events have helped me gain a great deal of knowledge but I am still a little overwhelmed with how much there is to learn and how much could be potentially go wrong. My strategy, at least for now, is to start by buying a 2-4 unit multifamily property. Within the last few weeks I have looked at 3 properties(I only went to see ones I REALLY thought were gems), and while I came away particularly impressed with the CF two of the properties could generate I just am not willing quite yet to put in any offers, because I'm still worried I still need more experience. By nature, I am a very conservative and I am finding it hard to jump in and actually move forward with purchasing a place.

I would love to be able to share a little bit more about my strategy and the properties that I have seen . As the community here is full of investors that are much seasoned than I am it would be great to be able to network with the BP community, particularly those that have experience in small multifamily properties in the Philly area. Would anyone be gracious enough to impart some of their wisdom on me? In general it would be great to continue to develop my real estate investing network. 

Also, if anyone has some financing advise it would be great to hear. I currently work full time as a financial analyst and have a strong finance background but still have a lot to learn on the real estate finance end of things. At this point I've built a relationship with a mortgage banker to get preapproved but haven't really shopped around yet so have a lot to learn in that realm as well. 

Andrew