First Time Investor on Long Island, New York

[Jimmy Smith]

Hey Everyone!

I'm very glad to be joining this community. Here's a bit of my background and what has brought me here.

While serving in the US Navy as a Seabee (civil engineer corps), I decided to separate after my first enlistment as it was not what I had hoped it would be. While it was an incredible and priceless experience, I believed I would be happier on the civilian side of things. I currently live on Long Island, I'm studying business, and work a job with a very irregular schedule and hours in Brooklyn and Queens. Despite the job paying well, offering benefits, and having career potential, I came to realize it is not the lifestyle I want. I have passed up a few career opportunities and changed majors several times, often feeling like I was lost finding what I wanted to do in life. Nothing seemed right to me. Last summer, it clicked. I didn't want to work for someone, I wanted freedom. This led me down a weird series of events as I didn't know exactly when I wanted to do, and although I made numerous mistakes with ventures that I am no longer pursuing, I learned a lot. 

After spending quite a long time of deciding how I intend to pursue financial freedom, I ran into a very young Real Estate Investor at an entrepreneurial workshop catering to military Veterans I attended in Austin, Texas late last year. After the the first day of the workshop we were invited to attended a networking event downtown. I offered him a ride together we headed about forty minutes to downtown Austin. Conversation ensued, and I was baffled by the Idea that a 23 year-old could have achieved as much as he has investing in real estate. That ride turned on the lightbulb, I had to pick his brain as much as I could. The rest of that time at the event I tried to learn as much as I could from him. Turns out, he got his start through a guru-style mentor and paid a ton for it. Along with flipping, he now does paid mentoring, but offers much more than his mentor, and is tremendously successful in his endeavors. He made a very soft pitch to me, but I knew there had to be a better way than handing someone $50,000 and saying "show me the way." I started reading about real estate investing voraciously.

I decided to join the community when I finished reading a book Josh Dorkin & Brandon Turner wrote, How to Invest in Real Estate. While previous books I read were certainly informative, they didn't feel as friendly and were certainly not as concisely written as this one. It truly helped me overcome my analysis paralysis and has made me feel confident enough to take the leap.

I won't get into detail in this post about my aspirations in real estate investing, but I would like to say I'm very happy to have found this community. If there is anyone in the Long Island area that would like to get together and chat about projects, ideas, or investing, please let me know!