Prop Trader looking to learn more about REI in Birmingham, AL

[Rob Drum]

My name is Rob Drum.  For the past 6 years I've been an equities prop trader, first in Chicago, then in Birmingham, Alabama.

I've been interested in real estate for a long time, and read a lot of books about it. I also listened most episodes of the BP Podcast. Thanks to @Joshua Dorkin and @Brandon Hall for building such an awesome and informative community!

I finally took the jump into rental properties about a year ago. Actually, it was more like I was thrown into it.

After getting married, my wife and I lived in a 2br/1ba 950 sqft home. When we started trying to get pregnant we realized we needed a bigger home, and put that house up for sale. Within 3 weeks we had it under contract for 162k. The buyer wanted to close early so we moved out and signed a short term lease at an apartment complex. Can you see where this is going? 3 days before our now earlier close, the appraisal came back at 135k. We were now locked into a lease with a perfectly good home sitting vacant , we just signed the papers to build a new home, and we found out we were pregnant. This was all within 3 days! Needless to say, I was pretty overwhelmed.

So, since I was already interested in REI, we decided to turn it into a rental. I contacted a reputable property manager and let them handle the management to start. That was about a year ago, and I've been really pleased with the results.

My goal is to build a portfolio of rentals. I want to do this for two reasons. First, because I would like to have more diversified income for when trading is slow. Second, I'm looking for profitable ways to spend my time outside of trading.

I've found that getting my hands dirty is a great change up from the "screen time" required by my job, so I like the aspect of being able to get paid for some physical work.

I'm looking forward to learning and connecting with the BP community.