4 High School Graduates that want Financial Freedom

[Steven Hove]

                                           Potentially Meaningless Backstory       

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Graduating high school felt like more of a chore than an accomplishment. Attempting to look into the next chapter of my life, it was nothing but a haze. Even the idea of college didn't feel right, although I have already been admitted and will be in a dorm with a stranger not 30 days from now.

At orientation we played a get-to-know-you game where a question ball was passed around. The ball was eventually fumbled around to me due to the plethora of uncoordinated music majors and my question read:

What is your dream job? 

Without hesitation I simply said, "To not have one." The group found it clever but I was even surprised myself. There was no conscious effort in thinking up such a reply. I pondered my own response and asked myself what it meant. It was years and years of the education system conditioning my mind as well as everyone else's. "Get good grades to get into a good college to get a good job and raise good children that get good grades to get into a good college to get a good job and raise good..." My brain was telling me that it didn't have to be that way. It was then I realized that I had a true thirst for Financial Freedom.

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                                             Potentially Less Meaningless Information

Now, I am here, with three others who want the same as I (One of which who has recently made there introductory forum post @NathanThompson). The four of us plan to reach the bulk of our financial freedom through real estate investing. 

As mentioned in Nathan's Intro, we have no real estate experience other than our book knowledge and our own attempts to vaguely analyze properties and understand our own market. In the next 30 days we will all be at a university, myself at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls and the other three at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

We all come from central Iowa (Des Moines/Pleasant Hill/Altoona) and are currently debating on whether or not we close our first deal in a market that we have grown up in only to be shipped off to University a month later, or to wait, and learn our market in a college town and invest there. 

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                                              Almost finished, don't worry

Essentially, we are four ambitious individuals who want to get our "skin in the game" (cliche, I know). It is time to put the books down and take action.

That being said, any advice from anyone regarding real estate investing in Iowa City and in college towns in general would be greatly appreciated. 

                Salute to anyone who took the time to read all this,

                                                                                                    Steven.

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                                                              Books

• Think and Grow Rich
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad
• The Richest Man in Babylon
• The 4-Hour Work Week
• The Art of War
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• The ABCs of Real Estate Investing
• The Book on Rental Property Investing
• The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No and Low Money Down
• The Book on Flipping Houses

[Theresa White]

I liked reading your post!  Welcome, and congratulations on having already taken great educational steps towards your goal of financial freedom! 

Do you guys have capital?  Who's bank-rolling tuition/room/board?  (Loans, parents, scholarships, self, etc)  My gut says take first semester to learn your market and develop a local plan to execute come second semester. 

And...please...don't screw up freshman year with those common time-management/social life pitfalls!  Keep everything in balance and moderation, if you can.  Even if you ultimately don't think college is right for you and decide to leave, you'll want to leave in good standing to keep doors open in the future.  (I dropped out by deliberate choice in good standing to gain work/life experience because I felt I was spinning my wheels in college initially...and dropped right back in to the same school on my employer's dime a couple years later because I left in good standing.  And they paid for a masters a few years after that.  And they're paying for my PhD now, 16 years after I initially dropped out!  Crazy.)