New Member from N.M.

[James Bruce]

Hello Everyone,

I found BP, like all of you, while researching ways to meet my REI goals. I've read quite a few blog posts here and have been listening/catching up on the BP podcast for the past month. I'm on episode 26 right now.

It seems like this is the place to be to get all of my questions answered for now and perhaps in the future I'll feel enough like an authority on a topic to chime in with some advice to other people's questions.

My interest in Real estate stems partially from my mother who owns 7 rental properties but primarily from a RE Investor that I met in Nicaragua 5 years ago.  He had built a real estate business that required very little time from him to manage.  He was from Canada, in his early thirties and proposed to his girlfriend while they were on vacation in Nicaragua.  He alternated working for 3 months and traveling for 3 months. He had a number of rental properties but he also had a property management company and a house flipping company.

At the time I thought "this is awesome, that's exactly the lifestyle I'd like to have." For many different reasons I didn't feel like I was in a reasonable position in life to start REI but fast foreward 5 years and I feel ready and Excited!

My main goal is to reach financial independence in 10 years or less and I primarily plan on doing that through buy and hold REI though I'm not opposed to buying and flipping or wholesaling to help get me to my goal sooner. The reason buy and hold seems so appealing to me it that it is the closest to completely passive income that I've found. I don't mind hard work, in fact I enjoy it but I would rather reap the rewards of my hard work over a longer period of time.

This "short" introduction seems to have gotten too long.  Thanks for reading and I'll see you guys around the forums.