Greetings Bigger Pockets Community,

My name is Zack Taylor.  I'm 33, I have a wife and two year old son and they are my world.  I currently work full time for the government, but I hope to use real estate investing to secure my family's financial future, and to potentially reach some financial goals ahead of schedule by obtaining cash flowing rental properties.

I found Bigger Pockets at the recommendation of a friend and coworker that is planning to begin investing in the next year or two.  I have since been listening to the podcast and have spent a little time reading the forums to try and learn as much as I can.  I also have a few books checked out of the library to get me started.

My wife and I initially got into "investing" after we bought our second home.  We had bought our first home, a two story townhouse, in 2009 in Bellingham, Massachusetts.  In 2012 when we were looking to find a new home in New Hampshire, where I work, the value of our townhouse hadn't risen enough for us to justify selling.  We've rented our townhouse for four years but our current tenants are moving out this month and with that we have decided to sell the property.  This will allow us to use some of that equity we had built up to purchase a property with better investment possibilities.

Our long term goal is to build a portfolio of cashflowing rental properties that we will hold and hopefully pass on to our children.  We plan to acquire our first true investment property within the next six to nine months and work towards turning that into four to five properties within the next ten years.  We also want to be able to take care of our parents as they start aging and we believe that having passive income through rental properties is the best way to offset those costs.

Thank you for spending the time reading this lengthy (I like to think thorough) introduction.  I look forward to learning everything I can from this community and I can't wait to start on this journey.