Newbie from Long Beach & Orange County – California

[Matthew Runfola]

Long time lurker for some months now, and taking the big plunge of posting my first introductory post. This may be a bit of a long intro, so thank you for reading. My name is Matthew and I am a complete novice with no real estate experience at the moment, but I want to change that by bringing value in any way I can. I am from Huntington Beach Orange County California, and I currently live in Long Beach California. I currently possesses a J-O-B as a human resources benefits administrator for a nationally based tech. company located in Irvine California.

Current goals are still being defined, reading the "One Thing", to clarify those goals in relationship to my REI aspirations. Ultimately what I want to do and get into is buy and hold REI to start and see where that takes me, and eventually quit my day job. I do have a monetary figure of an income I want to achieve per month in regards to that. However, as I am still in my education phase right now I am just reading books, which I started to do in late February of this year and completed the following:

“Ulimate Beginner’s Guide”, “Richest Man in Babylon”, “The Book on Rental Property Investing”, “The Book On Investing in Real Estate in Real Estate with No (And Low) Money Down”, and “The Millionaire Real Estate Investor”. I am about to start “The Unofficial Guide To Real Estate Investing”. Plus, I have read like 7 Kiyosaki books 10 years ago or so.

I have probably listened to at least over +40 hours of the BP podcast at this point maybe even more. Now for a little backstory time:

I've been wanting to get into real estate since 2005 when I read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" while I was serving in the U.S. Air Force, and back then BP was barely coming into existence, and I didn't know about it back then. It seemed like during that time any type of way to get into the REI scene as a novice was to sign up for some $20,000 guru/coaching seminar, which I could not afford then nor can I afford that now. Also there were a lot of scams presented that I saw prior to the 2008 bubble burst, and so I became a tad bit jaded, leery, and deterred to get started.

Finally again, if you read this far then I thank you, I have now come to realize that I need to have the gumption to get out and make moves with networking and doing something. I am eager, but due to inexperience I lack some degree of confidence. So next possible steps:

• 1. Continue to educate myself and define direction (Still figuring out where to start, ex. markets, SFR or Multi, etc.)
• 2. Network (attend local REIs and engage through BP)
• 3. Start looking for and analyze deals based on focused criteria
• 4. See if I can help put my first deal together
• 5. Make Offers with suitable financial backing with appropriate exit strategies in mind
• 6. Close and Maintain
• 7. Repeat until I can do it full time and quit my day-job.

Any guiding advice, encouragement, or wanting to say hello to me would be greatly appreciated. Again, I want bring value to others in any way I can. I will admit this place is a tad bit overwhelming. Plus, I am interested in sharing my challenges and brainstorming solutions with others. Thanks!

-Matthew