Newbie from Hazard, Kentucky

[Edward Sherman]

First of all, let me say I am so excited to have found this online community. I have been browsing the forums, reading the beginners guide and listening to the podcast religiously for about a week now.

I am a registered nurse case manager, and I work for a small company handling workers compensation claims. The money is good, due in large part to the amount of travel required.  Being such a small company my retirement, however, is not so great. I have jumped around in different healthcare jobs from ER to Hospice over the past decade and was never quite satisfied with the hourly requirements and the stress. With each of those jobs I would work a couple years or so, move on to something else and cash out my 401k. I do feel that I finally have found the niche in healthcare that fits my personality the best.  I am a free agent, work by myself for the most part and have a lot of flexibility with my schedule. The biggest issue is, at 36 years old and with 3 children, I have no retirement or savings.

The other day I was in deep thought and it occurred to me that I will be retirement age in 30 years! If I keep at this pace I will still be working long grueling hours with nothing saved up. That's when it hit me, that I should start looking into Real Estate.

So basically...I googled real estate investing and fell into the BiggerPockets rabbit hole. 

My goal is pretty simple. I want to use real estate in whatever capacity to help me retire comfortably, and pass something down to my children.

My plan is yet to be determined but I have thought long and hard about getting my realtor license. It's something I attempted a few years back and didn't follow through with due to a situational crisis and was unable to complete. I am not someone who gives up and I set that goal once before and I would like to knock it off the bucket-list regardless.

So...right now the plan is to soak up as much information as possible. Reading books, podcasts, blog posts and of course this forum. Get my realtor license and learn the ropes as a part time real estate agent while continuing my full time job as a nurse case manager.

I have SOME real estate experience. I have a basement 2 br apartment that we rent out to my wife's uncle. The house we live in will make a nice duplex if we ever decide to move out. So, I plan on keeping it and consider it my first real estate investment.

I am probably more interested in rental properties , buy and hold, and flipping homes. I was unaware of wholesaling before this week...so this is something catching my attention with limited capital at the moment. 

I am learning more about deal analysis presently and would like to do a lot of practice on available properties in my market until I am ready to pull the trigger on something.

Anyway...sorry for the long intro. Just happy to be here!