Caleb from Southern California and I just got my first rent check

[Caleb Rogers]

Hello, Bigger Pockets. My name is Caleb, and I'm new to the forum and new to real estate. I kind of stumbled into this whole rental investing thing by necessity, but I think I can see a bright future. Years ago, my wife and I talked about doing real estate in the future, like some distant dream in the clouds. It was always something we thought we would do in the future. Always in the future, and never right now. 

When I got a good job offer about a year ago, we had to pick up and move from Central Arkansas to Southern California. We owned a nice house there, but we just wanted to sell it and start fresh in California. Unfortunately for my real estate agent, the market was depressed and values were down. Even after lowering the price twice, it wouldn't sell. We paid that empty house for about 8 months before we decided to rent it out. We got a property manager and she had a renter in a couple of weeks. I just got our first rent check in the mail today, and it feels good. I should have just rented it out from the beginning, but oh well. I guess I'll have to build an empire now.

Currently learning so I can figure out what and where my next move is going to be. And I'm almost halfway through the podcast, and I've listened to all of the Money podcast (which is awesome -- Mindy and Scott are fantastic). Looking forward to learning from all of you people who know way more than I do about this stuff.