New husband and wife team from Central Ohio

[Darius Matulionis]

My wife Sheri and I have taken the plunge, and we are diving into real estate head first. My wife is a licensed real estate agent, and I will be testing for my license here shortly. After two layoffs in the past 4 years, we have decided it is time to leave the corporate world behind and work as independent contractors, and take greater control of our future.

We are of course a bit green, but we will be actively seeking out knowledge here on BiggerPockets and ramping up as quickly as possible. We have experience with rehabbing/remodeling our personal homes, and are looking to push that aspect of our real estate careers into overdrive, in an effort to build income streams for the future.

It would be wonderful to hear from others that have experience with financing, we are still trying to decide the best approach to funding ourselves, 401k Loans, Solo 401k, private lenders, or traditional banks. Additionally, learning the different market segments, especially here in Central Ohio, would help us focus our attention on what others have found to be the most successful paths to follow. Other questions we have concern things such as finding a good group of contractors to work with, and how to best protect all parties in our transactions, most certainly protecting our family as the top concern.