New Member from San Jose, CA

[Justin Madison]

Hello BP Community,

My wife and I are newer to Bigger Pockets, joined in December of 2015, and love it so far.  We found BiggerPockets.com by accident searching on Google.  We are from San Jose, CA and became interested in real estate investing as we started looking for a house to buy ourselves.  As many know, the real estate prices in the Bay Area have greatly increased since 2012 and thus we have been hesitant to jump into the market, with the prices being so inflated.  We are serious about real estate investment and have been investing in our education over the last year, according to our plan, by listening to about 25 BP Podcasts, going to local meetups, and reading six real estate investing books.  We are learning to analyze deals using J Scott's Excel Spreadsheet.  We are trying to weigh the pros and cons of investing out of state, where prices are lower and deals are more plentiful.  

The reason we are getting into real estate is because we follow Jesus Christ (non-denominational Christian) and we would like to serve our King by doing missions work when we retire, possibly overseas.  We would like to be able to self-fund our missions work so more funds will be freed up for others.  If possible, we would like to be able to retire earlier than age 65 so we can get out to the missions field earlier.  We enjoy being generous with the resources that God has so graciously given us so we would like to make extra income to be able to give more.  I'm passionate about mentoring other men in the faith, so I would like to be able to be freed to do that more in the future.  

We work full time so we are interested in passive investments such as buy and hold houses, either SFR's or Multi-Family properties. We could be interested in notes, or corporate rentals but need to learn more about them.

We're excited to get to know more real estate investors!

[Colton Cook]

Hey @Justin Madison,

Great seeing another follower of Jesus getting into real estate to leverage their impact in the kingdom. My wife and I also want to our (either 1, 3, or 5) talents and invest them in the kingdom. We set up shop in a forgotten town in Texas with hopes of breaking the generational cycles of fatherlessness with the interjection of the love of Jesus. Thanks for sharing, I'm so encouraged by your story. If you want any accountability, I'd love to hold each other to taking risks and pushing the limits.

God Bless man.