Newbie in St. Louis, Missouri

[Lance Middleton]

Hello BP members! My name is Lance Middleton and I am a 23 year old graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. I am getting my masters degree in mechanical engineering this May(2018). This past summer I went on a knowledge binge mostly reading self help books and after reading "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and "Cashflow Quadrant", I quickly became aware of the power of real estate investing. I starting reading blog posts on the topic and eventually stumbled upon BiggerPockets about 2 months ago. Since then I have listened to about 40 BP podcast episodes(and counting) and am currently reading "Set for Life" by Scott Trench. It's safe to say that I have the bug and have no intentions to stop learning. To get to the point, I plan on living frugally and saving at least 50% of my income and after a year in the industry I plan for my first deal to be a house-hack. I'd like to get into the buy and hold game with fixer upper multi-family rental properties and attain financial freedom early on(Age 35 is my goal). While I have only had a couple internships in the engineering industry, it has always been evident to me that engineering is not something I want to do for the rest of my life and having the option to change my career would be nice. Until I have the liquid assets to buy this first property, I plan to keep educating myself through books/blogs, attend local REI meetups, and become an active member of BiggerPockets Forums. Thanks for reading my first post and I can't wait to meet fellow BP members whether its virtually or through a local meetup! Cheers! :)

[Megan Greathouse]

Welcome, @Lance Middleton. I'm a newer investor in the area, and also went to grad school at Wash U in St. Louis (for my MBA). I currently own a single family and a 4 family, in addition to my own primary residence. So still fairly new, but I've got a little bit of "on-the-job experience" so far. Feel free to connect and reach out with any questions!