New Investor in Chattanooga, TN

[Manny Perez]

Hello everyone!

My name is Manny, I'm new to real estate investing, in fact I don't know a lot about the world of real estate investing, I guess that's why I decided to join Bigger Pockets. Right now I'm reading a book titled The Book on Rental Property investing  by Brandon Turner which I've found very resourceful and helpful, I'm also subscribed to the Bigger Pockets podcast and I try to listen to it everyday. I'm originally from Cuba, I've been living in the USA for about 4 years now, and as most immigrants my choice to come to this country which I love now and I call it my second home, was fueled by a burning desire of having the opportunities to build a better life for myself and my family and have the freedom we enjoy in this country. Back in Cuba I went to college for 3 years, I was trying to become an English teacher but I didn't get to finish since I was granted a visa to come to this country through The Cuban Family Reunification Program. Since my arrival here, I've worked several jobs, I was involved in construction for about 6 months I was a laborer and even though I didn't have a lot of knowledge about this field (coming straight from college lol )  I tried to learn as much as I could and be the best I could at it, I also was a manager for the Valet Parking Services in a hospital in my area for about 2 years and I'm currently working for Amazon. I decided to invest in real estate from the moment I found an article online about passive income which led me to the BiggerPockets website, this one talked about rental properties and how they can be the path to financial freedom. Now the reason why I wanna achieve financial freedom, it's to be able to provide a better life for my daughter and my mother which by the way are still living in Cuba but also the idea of working an 8 to 5 job or in my case a 7 to 6 job where I'm bound to a schedule exchanging time for money didn't sound too good for me and to be doing that for the rest of my life until I retire if I can retire at all wouldn't give me the opportunity to enjoy life next to the people I love. Therefore I decided to buy my first property, last month I got pre-approved for a 110k loan and right now I'm looking for a duplex in the Hixson/Chattanooga, TN area since I wanna focus on rental properties. Now that all of you know a little about me, I'm open to any suggestion, advice, and help that I can receive from this community. I also wanna thank Josh and Brandon for creating this website and for providing all these tools and knowledge to make it easier for the new, average and experienced investor. 

[William Allen]

@Manny Perez, welcome to BP!  I am planning on buying some rentals in the Chattanooga area myself very soon. We are wholesaling there right now and actively searching for deals. We actually have a duplex under contract in Hixson that we are marketing now. This one doesn't have time for a conventional loan but I'm sure we will find some that will in the future. Good luck getting started, you are in a good place for that here on BP!