New Young investor in FL Panhandle

[Derek Pigulski]

Hi everybody! My name is Derek and I've been a long time lurker on the site but haven't posted an introduction. I'm 25 years old, married, and serving in the Air Force. I took advantage of my VA loan opportunity and decided not to rent but buy. My wife & I bought a beautiful 1500sqft home in a pleasant neighborhood that was bought undervalued due to being in foreclosure. My wife and I are DIY'ers and have been doing projects every weekend to renovate our home and make it look great for us while hopefully increasing the value of the home for when we're ready to move on. I bought in at 157K, only house in the complex with a private pool in the backyard, beautiful landscaping, and an overall very clean project for us to make into something great.

My short term plan is to continue living here and renovating until my enlistment is up.  The decision to rent the home out or see where the market is will be evaluated then.  The home 2 doors down from us just listed for 30K more than mine, and pictures show it is less refined and renovated than ours.  I feel really happy with our purchase.  I also began a hobby in wholesaling.  I was 2 weeks into the whole procedure and had 15 people on my buyers list, some networking with powerful buyers, and a home under contract.  Before I could finish the deal, I deployed and had to drop everything. I'm more than anxious to get started into wholesaling again as soon as I can. 

I love investing as a hobby, I'm always reading about how to better my portfolio and generate a positive net worth. Unfortunately my wife has some pretty horrific student loans, so that is our motivation to achieve financial freedom through real estate to get out from under the burden of overhead debt. I'm highly confident in our abilities. I would like to ask what the BP opinion would be on attempting to rent my home and move into a second home as our primary residency with the remaining balance on my VA loan, or how I can begin to expand my real estate portfolio in other ways. Thank you to everybody for your time and I look forward to hearing from everyone of you like minded individuals.

Derek