Newbie from Columbia, MO area

[Trent Kruessel]

I'm Trent Kruessel (krEE-sul), a greenhorn real estate investor from Salisbury, MO (55 miles north of Columbia) and I have little to no experience.  I bought our house and farm at a public auction and luckily got a good deal but otherwise have no real estate exposure.  I'm a mechanical engineer and work full-time while my wife stays at home raising our family.

My goals are to have passive income from properties & investments to replace my full-time job. I think my area is best suited for buy & hold rentals so I am currently building capital to buy my first property (single family home). I'd like to buy my first 2 or 3 properties with cash, then form an LLC, and then expand and gradually become more and more passive in the operations (i.e. hire handyman, property manager, etc.) and focus on growing the business and getting deals.

I joined BP because of a referral from a friend and former boss.  I've been diving into business and finance books for the past year or two (Kiyosaki, Ramsey, Phil Town, etc.) and am addicted to finance and investing.

I'm here and ready to learn and work.

[Maggie L.]

@Trent Kruessel welcome to BP! There's a lot of great info on here, and @Paul Timmins covered a lot of what I would've said. I definitely recommend keyword searches in the forums if you haven't set them up already, and looking for nearby REI groups to learn and network in addition to everything on BP.

There are LOTS of them on Meetup in my area (St Louis, MO) and I'd wager you'd have some luck on Meetup as well. If you're not finding much near you it may be worth a trip to KC or St Louis for a larger REI group meeting. I've always found the president/organizers to be excited to talk to people getting started, and they may know of someone (or know someone who knows someone) who invests near you.