Newbie from Durham North Carolina

[Jeremy Simpson]

Hey everyone. My name is Jeremy Simpson and I just stumbled across BP and I am already blown away by the amount of information available. I cant wait to jump in with both feet. (is there another way to jump in?) and read everything on the site. I am currently married to an awesome wife who has agreed to support my decision to get involved in REI. I also have a 9 month old daughter. Some of my passions are new technology and college football. I am a huge fan of Virginia Tech and I try to go to all of their games. I would say I'm also a huge fan of meeting new people and really enjoy solving difficult problems.

I never really considered REI but recently the idea just slapped me in the face. Before I was married my wife and I both owned our homes separately and we decided to just rent her home out when she moved in with me. Her property isn't very lucrative but it makes money and to be honest as long as we weren't losing money we were ok with it. That was 2 years ago. Then this past December I inherited another home. The home was old (built in 1961) but in decent shape. I decided to update it a little and try to rent it out as well. Well i have been having a blast getting this home ready to rent. Deciding what sink to put in the bathroom and what countertops to put in the kitchen has been super fun for me and it got me thinking maybe this is something I should be doing more of. I have always been a fan of repairing things and in fact my full time job is as a tech support analyst at UNC. I think real estate investing is something that I didn't even realize i had a huge passion for. I have been thinking about it nonstop since December 13. My coworker even asked me at lunch, can we please talk about something else??? I am sure that I will learn so much in the coming months and years on BP but starting off I am mostly looking to find out how to know if the property is a good deal. I see lots of inexpensive properties on Zillow and other sites but I don't know how to determine if these properties are a good investment or not. I'm mostly interested in Buy and Hold properties though I am not against flipping as well to build more capital. Finally I am trying to learn what repairs should cost. For example how much should someone charge to fix a hole in drywall, put in new carpet, power wash a home. These are my most pressing issues.

Thanks for reading my introduction and even though I am a newbie if there is anything anyone feels like I can help them with please do not hesitate to ask.

Jeremy