New Member from England!

[Benjamin Kolmer]

Good morning, all!

Thanks to all of you for providing and contributing to such a wealth of knowledge and, well, wealth. My name is Ben Kolmer, I'm an Air Force officer currently stationed in England. Rough tour, right? 

My wife and I are real estate newbies, but have been investing in more "traditional" investment vehicles for several years now. I was largely inspired in this venture by several co-workers, at least one of whom has been massively successful. On the recommendation of a friend, I downloaded the Bigger Pockets podcast and was pleasantly surprised to find that the very first podcast in my list was Ep. 268 - Acquiring 20 Long Distance Rental Homes on a Military Salary with Rich Carey. Needless to say, I found this episode quite enlightening and inspiring. 

I was further pleasantly surprised when I made an account on Bigger Pockets and the very first post I saw was a reply by a good friend, @Wes Woodhouse! 

Chance (and a small world) aside, I'm very excited to begin this journey. My initial plan for real estate investing is to act as an investor for the remainder of my time in England in order to build capital to purchase my first property upon returning to the States. From there, I intend to pursue a buy and hold strategy, ideally focusing on small multi-family units. I'm also curious to learn more about raw land investing, and of course, am entirely open to the experience of others and will likely change/modify this initial shell of a plan as I learn more and gain more experience.

My goal with real estate, on a broad scope, is to build wealth via passive income in order to enable a lifestyle in which my wife and I can make traditional work optional and use our time to engage in meaningful projects and endeavors to help others in need around the world.

Thank you again for building such an impressive community!

Ben