Hi! Noob from Silicon Valley (SF Bay Area)

[Dave Friedman]

Hey, everybody.

My name's Dave, and my family and I live in San Jose, CA. Little-known fact: Our city is actually the biggest one in the San Francisco Bay Area, by both population and area. (Sorry, SF. ;-) )

We've done the home-purchasing thing twice, but both times as primary residences. We bought our first condo in 2002, then upgraded to a nicer condo in 2005. That's pretty much the limit of our RE experience. We're total noobs when it comes to RE investing, but eager to learn. We found Bigger Pockets through Google searches--every time I'd search on a RE question, this site always came up. :-) A work friend who does RE investment also recommended it.

In my day job, I write developer documentation for a tech company. Our prime motivator for going into into RE is to diversify our investments. (I feel like the stock market is running very hot...) Beyond that, our goals are (in ascending order of ambition):

* Achieving some kind of reasonable cash flow (10% or higher CoC)

* Growing our assets at a healthy clip

* Being able to buy a primary residence in a good school district here

* Paying for our daughter's college in 8 years

* Achieving financial independence

We're closing on our first property--a SFR down in the Atlanta metro area--in about 3 weeks. I'm excited to learn from everybody, and also share whatever experience I can glean/offer.