New Member from Colorado!

[Dwight Bradshaw]

Hi everybody!

My name is Dwight Bradshaw and I currently live up in the Northern Front Range of Colorado (Fort Collins, Windsor, Johnstown) area.

My 19 year old son, Collin Bradshaw (who also is a new member here on BP) attended the summit in Denver this past weekend and totally loved our time with everyone there!

We are not only new to Bigger Pockets, but we are brand new to the idea of real estate investing as well. I'm 43 years old this Sunday (April 1st...I know, I know, let the jokes begin. LOL!) and basically having to restart our finances completely from scratch. So at this point I am one of those newbies who don't have the cash or credit to get going, but I DO have the time. My wife and I decided that the thing we would love to do the most is to work for ourselves and not for someone else, so we started up an interior design company and are growing that together. (I feel extremely fortunate to be able to pursue my dreams side by side with my wife!)

I've always been intrigued with real estate investing but haven't done anything about it. We actually have been forced into it because of lack of cash flow: We moved in with my folks for a couple of years to help us get our business going and we are renting out our home. My goal is to not move back into that house, but to keep it as a rental and to buy something else when we're ready to move back out on our own. I tell you that level of detail to describe the situation I'm in and to help you all understand our starting point.

I hope that you're understanding that even though I'm not in a good place financially, I feel like I'm in a fantastic place with the rest of my life. My relationships are all good and I have the freedom to explore and be creative with my future. So, I'm lovin' life!

So, on to REI...I'm hoping to do a combination of strategies to get going strong. My son and I are going to partner up and work on this together and our goals for 2012 are:
Do 2 wholesale deals (averaging $7K per deal
Do 1 Fix and Flip with money partners - our net profit being $15K
Buy 1 house with a money partner and rent it out giving our partner 10% annual ROI (not sure how to best structure the exit of this one). But I just really want to do a buy and hold right now to take advantage of this great opportunity to buy.

One qualifier, the above goals are made without much knowledge of what our market will allow. I've spent the last few months reading and have gone to a couple of classes and the BP summit, so now I'm moving into the "getting to know the market stage" where I need to go look at lots and lots of properties and begin to find money partners.

So, lots of mistakes will be made, but lots of fun will be had! I'm a sponge right now (and hopefully for the rest of my life) and have been learning, but it's time to step out and act! I have a very flexible schedule since my wife is the gifted interior designer and I'm mostly doing the business side of that. I also have a lot of familiarity with seeing potential in properties and knowing prices for design and basic floorplan remodels (I still have to learn quite a bit more about more involved rehabbing). But I'm ready to go!

I really want to make this work and am super excited that my son is interested at 19 instead of at 43. :)

It's going to be great new season of our lives! Woohoo!