Newbie investor in New Jersey

[Anthony Rizzo]

I'm a newcomer here in NJ, but have been lurking for a couple of months. I have recently read every rental property related book I could get from my local library, and have been listening to as many podcasts as I can when commuting to and from work. I have always been interested in real estate, and began wanting to explore this investing route since I first got out of the military back in 2005. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately due to the housing collapse in the late 2000's, I never got past the "looking into it" phase. As of recently I have been looking more into it and definitely plan to begin investing in the next year or so. I am beginning a new job in the next few months as a tax accountant for a Big 4 firm, so I will wait until I finish my first year and stabilize my income before jumping wholeheartedly into rentals. It will be tough taking a pay cut, but it will offer a much higher upside than that of my current position as a Corrections Officer. 

I began running loosely the numbers on deals I find on various real estate sites as practice, and it is definitely difficult from what Ive been seeing so far in NJ with the outrageous property taxes and overall home prices. I would love to connect with any other investors, especially in the Ocean County area as well as south and west NJ, as I would like to stay generally close to home area when starting out so I can self manage my first property to learn hands on as much as I can.