New Member from Reading, Pennsylvania

[Luke Casamassa]

Good evening fellow BPers!

My name is Luke, and I currently reside outside of Reading, PA in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. I made it here through a friend when I learned that he was, in my eyes, magically living for free. I was mind-blown, and knew I had to learn how he did it. After a few months of listening to the BP podcast and learning about house hacking on my own, I have finally decided to introduce myself.

I am currently working in the medical office field, and I find myself having to work everyday instead of wanting to work. What I do is just not a passion of mine. While studying on how I can house hack a small multi family house, I noticed that I have a lot of interest in this area of work. Not only do I have interest in multi family real estate, but this overwhelming topic actually makes sense to me. It is a tremendous feeling because my whole life I could never find what I wanted to do professionally, and it brought many of draining emotions along with it. I have worked several different jobs trying to find this feeling of passion, and each one was a swing and a miss. I have worked as a patrol officer, infantryman in the Army Guard, online business developer, and currently a Health Info Manager. Although I have done exceptionally well in each of these professions, it just never felt like home. Coincidentally, I have only ever felt that homey feeling while learning about real estate and searching for a new home.

Luckily, I have no wife or children, and my responsibilities only include myself. Thus, I am able to drop everything in my professional life and move into a real estate profession. Before I do so, I was hoping to hear some feedback from those with experience. My short term goal is to owner occupy a 2-4 unit in the Greater Philadelphia Area, and my long term goal is to buy and hold larger multi family properties.

The way I learn best is from actually doing. I can read all day, but hands on experience is the best way for me to learn and it has always been. With that in mind, would you wise members of BP suggest that I find a job in property management and gain real estate experience that way while learning how to invest on the side? Or is there another option for a job that my inexperienced mind can not come up with at this point in time. Any direction would be greatly appreciated.

Also, a few of my interests are mountain biking/hiking, fishing, and skydiving. So if you have similar interests, I would love to connect!

Thank you for your time in getting to know me, it is greatly appreciated, and no advice will go unheeded.

[Jose Vazquez]

Hey Luke.. My name is Jose and I also live in Reading PA. My story is similar to yours. Although I can't directly tell you what you should do, or shouldn't do, I can definitely tell you what I did: Before real estate I was working in manufacturing and I didn't like it at all. It was very depressing and monotonous. My first move was to house-hack a duplex. I only wanted a duplex so i can test the waters with 1 unit; as opposed to 3 or 4. Looking back I should've done 4 lmaooo Anyway, I currently live on one side and rent the other. After house-hacking my living expenses went way down. I could finally afford to leave manufacturing and go all in with real estate. As of this week I'm officially an agent with Keller Williams and I couldn't be happier. If you ever need anything don't hesitate to contact me. I'd be more than happy to help you find your first house-hack. Much blessings and good luck :)