Newbie from Bonney Lake, WA

[Justin NA]

Good afternoon BP! I wanted to start the proper way with the newbie intros. I'm in a little city an hour South of Seattle (on a good traffic day), although we just got a Costco so it's growing. I'm a tech nerd by day with a lucky job that allows me to work from home as well as spend time learning and reading on my next adventure here. Some hobbies are football...I mean REAL football, not throwball (Go SOUNDERS), techie things and motorcycle riding. I'm recently divorced with a couple, almost adult, children. This last sentence is the most important as it is the catalyst for me to get into REI.

Lucky for me I will be able to keep my current house and also pull out some cash to get started into the game.  In fact I'll be posting shortly about a deal analysis.  I've been interested in RE for long time.  I was very close about 10 years ago to purchasing a foreclosure.  I had private money for the down, a hard money lender, etc.  There were just some other things preventing me from pulling the trigger.  Better late than never I suppose.

I've read multiple threads about having a plan or finding your niche.  However it's hard to know NOW what I will or will not be most interested in.  As it sits now though my initial short term goal, after refi, is to find another primary house in the area (preferably off-market) to move into and rent my current house.  This is going to give me experience finding and negotiating 'deals' as well as landlord experience.  If after a year I can't handle landlording, then I'll know.  But I think the rental market may be my long term goal.  At this point I'm not so much interested in 'become a bajillionaire in 18 months!' but gaining knowledge and experience to lead me to the next goal.  I want to be comfortable enough within the next 2-5 years to be able to help my kids as they grow and move out to maybe start off with a 'house-hack' duplex and then possibly on to other things.  Longer term I want to be able to invest both in WA and AZ and become a snow bird :) in addition to providing my kids something long lasting.

Alright, I think that's good for now.  I look forward to learning and meeting other people excited about REI here on BP.

Justin