First time investor - Dallas, TX & Muncie, IN

[Sri M.]

Hello All,

I just want to introduce my self here. My name is Sri and I am new to real estate investment and am a new member here on BP. I am learning a great deal about real estate investment on BP. I appreciate the knowledge base available here. Thank you everyone who contributes here. It's helping newbies like me tremendously. 

I have just completed reading the Ultimate Beginner's Guide and have moved on to read the blogs and forums. I live in Dallas, TX and am interested to invest in real estate, specifically in rental properties with buy and hold strategy. I am looking for a stable cash flow for passive income as I have a full time job in IT. However, I am willing to put all the time and effort to educate myself on real estate investment as much as my full time job allows. 

I have started looking at rental properties in Muncie, IN as I am a BSU alumni and am comfortable with that town and looks like some decent prospects there for cash flow rentals. I am looking to start small and ramp up as I gain the necessary knowledge and experience. Most of the beginner's guide made sense to me at a high level, except for the business entity structuring. Is incorporating my business a natural first step before I look into actually buying a rental property from a personal liability perspective? Or would it be OK to start buying my first rental as an individual? I am sure this info is somewhere here on BP but any suggestions to get me started on this topic would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your time.  Looking forward to learning from experts here and growing. Thanks for reading my post.