Nice to meet you all! From Hartford, Connecticut.

[Steven Valencia]

Good morning/afternoon depending where you are, my name is Steven Valencia and I'm happy to be here! I'm new to the goal of becoming a real estate investor and hope to learn a lot from this forum along with the veterans that have been in my shoes. I've been doing a lot of reading to get more familiar with terms such as wholesaling, hard money lenders and other concepts so any book recommendations that can supplement the the information I get from here would be appreciated! I'm aiming to buy my first property by the end of this year (not sure which type first) and hope to add at least one more each year following the hopeful success of my first. My financial aim is to hit $80,000 a year as a minimum and to build on that every year through reinvesting in real estate. My long term goal is to hit $1,000,000 minimum sitting in my savings account. Of course if I could make $1,000,000 a year I'd love to but trying to be realistic in starting thoughts haha. I came to join BiggerPockets when I tried to find ways to learn more about real estate. I saw this pop up in an online search and saw all the motivating and helpful people and fell in love with the community from the outside, and now I want to be a part of it all. Thank you for having me here, I hope we can all work well together and that I can learn a lot from you all. 



[William Brown]

Steven Valencia ahhh fresh meat ;-)

But straight talk you have come to the right place to achieve your goals. The biggest wake up call to me when I came here was that it was free coaching and people would hold my hand.

I couldn't be more wrong.

However, this is a community that will show you the ugly in the real estate investing world. I love it. I'm always out here trying to shoot holes in people's plans and smiling when they shoot holes in mine.

Biggest advice is, take it slow. At first. There is such a wealth of information on here, it can be like looking up at Mt Everest after never seeing a mountain before.

It is overwhelming, but don't get overwhelmed. If you haven't, find the BiggerPockets Podcast and download them all to your phone. Start at number one, and listen to them when at home, in the car, whenever you have a free moment--like I do.

But most importantly, have fun with this! If you start to look like REI as another sh**ty job you have to do, you won't get anywhere.

Also feel free to shoot me a colleague request and we can chat sometime! I'm also just educating myself right now and drawing my plans for the future!

God bless!