Longtime Lurker says Hello, World!

[Jason Brown]

Hello everyone! 

I have been lurking on hundreds of posts over the past few years and eventually registered on here last year. I'm lazy at posting because I'd rather read people's stuff than write my own stuff. 

Why did I finally decide to post?

1. There are lots of great people on here that I want to connect with.

2. I am getting back into RE investing after taking a break from "the game" (to take stock in what is important in life)

3. To get out of my comfort zone and post thoughts and ideas that I may think are awesome/interesting, but fear that other people think it's crap.

I bought my first house in 1994 while attending UT Austin. I rented rooms to friends while in school and eventually rented the whole house when I moved to Seattle in 1997. I pursued a career as a videogame tester at Microsoft Games, and my favorite project to work on was Age of Empires 2. I used my paychecks to fund my real estate deals, and eventually built up lines of credit to do more deals. I was a full-time worker and part-time-investor for most of my career.

Real estate investing has allowed me to take several multi-year mini-retirements. Over the past 15 years or so, I worked about half that time. I love to travel and over the past few years I was able to do volunteer work in South Africa and take a self-guided bike tour through France. I took some long road trips in 2016 (5-month) and 2017 (45-day National Parks). I have my own little zombie-bugout-vehicle in the form of an SUV-stealth-RV: I built a custom roof rack and slapped 200w of solar panels on it, I built a queen bed platform in the back. It makes for a useful mobile office as well.

After my last contracting gig at Apple Maps, and suffering another bout of crappy corporate management, I decided I had enough and made the move to full-time investor last summer. By "making the move" what I really mean is "exploit lots of happy hour specials, hang out at the pool all summer and theory-craft creative-financing techniques, go on road trips, and put off work until 2018."

My fiancee and I are moving from Austin to San Antonio in a few weeks and will start our focus on wholesaling. Our goal is to replace my old software income with passive income (notes, rentals) over the next several years so that we can continue to travel the world and participate in more volunteer opportunities. A traditional job simply does not give us the flexibility to travel the way we want to.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to connecting with many of you.