Hello from Columbia, South Carolina!

[David Thompson]

Hi, my name is David and I'm posting here to proclaim my seriousness in officially joining the real estate world!

About me: I'm 33ish years old, just moved to Columbia from Charlotte at the beginning of the year and bought a house in the Lake Carolina area(to live in) with my wife and our dogs.

I'm extremely driven: I currently work about 50-60 hours a week between two jobs in the Information Security field. While working two jobs brings me a pretty crazy income compared to the average Columbian, you can imagine it sucks up a lot of my free time; and frankly, I've really always dreamed of being my own boss and retiring early to do something fun like fixing up junky houses. In order to make all of this happen, I have already made some pretty solid steps:

1. I've convinced my wife not only that my idea isn't crazy, but that she should work for me as my first employee!

2. I've been reading what I can, and tuning into great podcasts such as BiggerPockets and House Flipping HQ

3. I've begun working on my real estate license, which time permitting should be done early june-ish

4. I've managed to wrangle together a few trustworthy teammates to help finance/reno a pilot flipping project

5. I've formed my own LLC

6. I've been cruising the markets, visiting houses, and practicing pulling comparables

I have lots of goals, but my biggest medium term one is building my business to a point where I can quit one (or both) jobs to help keep it going. In the mean time, however:

- I want to get in there and make some mistakes on a good cheap flip

- I want to go to REIAs, and build some relationships: Local partners, contractors, investors, financiers, realtors, you name it; I want to build a strong network.

- I want to dabble in whatever niches I can; flipping, buying to hold, both sides of whole-selling, etc.

How are you going to do all of this while working full time?

Aside from a stupid amount of determination, I'm married to a wonderful woman who is also not only entrepreneurially minded, but a great home designer and fantastic marketer to boot! 

My philosophy is simple: Time progresses, whether or not you do. 

I've made up my mind to use my time as wisely as possible now, and to make myself successful in this area; I don't expect it to be easy, but it's already a done deal in my head so therefore it is only a matter of time before the path manifests itself.

Anyway, that's me. I hope to be as active in the community as my time allows.