Brand new to real estate investing and frankly, it was by accident that my wife and I found out it was a very real option in our lives. I have always had a very entrepreneurial spirit and strong desire to be self sustaining. Something in me has always told me a paycheck is not a doorway to dreams but a dead end. I have always dreamed of being a landlord or building/flipping houses (I worked for many years in most all aspects of the construction industry). That dream always seemed unattainable until recently. We bought our home in 2012 for $88,000 (currently owe 78k) and about 6-8 weeks ago we started discussing selling it to upgrade to something a little bigger/nicer. Thinking it was MAYBE worth 100k we contacted a realtor to see what our options might be and set up a meeting.

Boy did that meeting change EVERYTHING!

Our realty team came prepared with a market analysis that was near impossible for us to believe, our home was worth roughly 170k!? And that wasn't even the BEST part! Unbeknownst to us the realty team we had chosen were investor focused, so when I casually mentioned my dream of investing in real estate they explained my "dreams" were well within reach and could quickly become reality.

The quest for knowledge was on.

I immediately started trying to teach myself about REI, reading articles at night and listening to podcasts nonstop by day. I found a woman by the name of Paula Pant who kept mentioning Bigger Pockets, I then started listening to the BP podcast nonstop. I came to the BP website on June 6, on June 7 I became a PRO member.

Here we are today.

We are in the process of cash out refi-ing our home (appraised at 175k in the end) to aid in buying some small multifamily properties. We hope to quickly build credibility and knowledge in order to begin do flips as well. My goal is to build long term passive income through buy and hold as well as, fire my boss through flips. My wife is in the research phase of getting her real estate license (looking for a good school and brokerage to get started with). She hopes to get into a bit property management to self manage our properties as well as take on some outside contracts possibly.

That's our story, a bit long and probably wandering I know and apologize but, I can hardly contain my excitement for what the future holds! Sad that I waited so long to ask questions and realize how possible this all could have been years ago.

Oh well, better late than never.

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N00b from Gainesville, GA

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