Hi All, First I would like to thank everyone here for all of the informative posts. I am definitely seeing some good use for this site. My name is Edwin and I am from Northern New Jersey. I currently work in NYC and grew up in the NYC metro area most of my life. My background is in investment banking and I currently work for one of the top 3 largest banks in the world. Sorry but most people hate investment bankers because of the housing crisis but rest assured I didn't cause it. Lol. I do have a background in working with Mortgage Backed Securities and bond desks. Because I work in IB I have a lot of exposure to interest rates and economic data which is something I am better acquainted with than actually fixing houses. In other words, I am a numbers man rather than a handy man although I can work a hammer and nail from my military background as well. Either way, I'm new to REI and have not closed any deals yet but do expect to close on something within the 1st quarter of 2016. I am currently looking at properties and have a few in mind that I want to negotiate with. So am looking to learn as much as possible from everyone here and hopefully I can offer some good pieces of advice myself on investment data which may be new to some. If anyone is in NJ and wants to network please feel free. Im interested in investing in a buy and hold strategy and my philosophy is the same for stocks and real estate. With stocks I am an value investor and look for distressed companies to buy that I can find value in. There is a difference between price and value and when looking at a longer term horizon price seems to be less important than actual value. Although Price erodes value at a certain threshold. With the securities markets psychology is one of the most important things. Either way, I plan on learning from everyone here and I already see great advice here. I would love to hear how everyone has started in this industry and what have they improved upon through the years that perfected their initial entry into real estate? If there are forums for this please share. Thanks all.