Hello, I am new to BP and REI

[Ashton Davis]

Hello all, my name is Ashton I am 28 and will be turning 29 here in 3 days. Short time member here and super excited to be a long term member in such an inspiring community. I'm a father of two beautiful amazing children as well as spouce to a truly amazing women.

Both her and I have always had an attraction to REI (mainly in flipping) but due to our situation with our children have never acted on our desire to pursue it. I slave away at a monotonous job with decent pay, good benefits, that alows me to be home with my family every night, weekend , and holidays. All of which are extremely important to me as I have worked in retail, and full commission sales positions. Both of which monopolized all of my time, energy and yet still no finacial freedom while missing critical moments in my family's growth.

We purchased our first home (primary 4 br 2 bth 2180 sq ft conv 30 yr fxd. $189k) last year, and now that the dust is starting to settle on that purchase as well as her employment status in the medical field we are ready to begin our education in REI. We are in the very beginning stages as this is completely foreign to us, but have had great success in beginning our education process thanks to the hours I have spent on BP between forums and the amazing Podcasts I cannot seem to put down. This is a truly great resource and am so glad i stubbld across it. Huge shout out to this comumity and what you are doing here. I look forward to grabbing up several of the many books referenced here as well as potentially starting my advancement to getting my RE license.

After much reading and listening I am finally going to sit down and generate a real plan for the upcoming years to start up in REI. So far the first question I have is that I live in seemingly "small" market area. Now I have no research yet to support this, but as I travel this extremely small geographical area of the DE peninsula (yes I live in DE) I don't see much potential. Or what my newbie eyes view as potential. I don't know if I should start out here or possibly 2 hours East of my primary location in the Annapolis/ District of Columbia area. Maybe North to Philadelphia area? I live about 40-50 min away from several tourist beaches which I see as big potential in seasonal rental mkt, but I have no idea what markets look like in these areas, or which to best target while starting out. If there is anyone who has any experience in DE, Eastern shore MD markets please reach out as I am trying to fully immerse myself in my goals to financial freedom.

Also if there are any investors who are in my local area who started their REI careers here I would love to hear a bit about your origin stories. I love reading about others success, it is inspiring.

Thanks in advance for any and all feedback. I look forward to what the future holds.