Introduction - not sure if this is the right spot :)

[Alex Schredl]

Hello everybody,

I couldn't find the new member introduction "room" so please forgive me in advance if I am totally off base here.

My name is Alex and I currently live in sunny (and currently firey) Southern California. My wife and I as well as our two little girls live in a 3bed/3bath home we purchased about 3 years ago. I recently started going through a personal transformation where I realized I could be doing a lot more with my time and money. I stopped drinking, eating sweets, and am now going to the gym 7 days a week. I have always thought about buying a second property not only for appreciation/investment purposes, but also cash-flow. I overall goal would be to be able to stop working my day job within the next 10 years and strictly work in real estate. I never really had the extra capital to invest in anything serious, but now I have a fair amount of funds and am ready to invest! I did a search online for "top 10 real estate book" and Mr. Turners "Rental Property Investing" ranking number 1 or 2 on that list. I bought it about a week ago and am almost done with it and am now totally hooked. 

I see myself investing in SFR (3bed and 1 or 2 bath) as well as duplex's. After listening to one of the podcasts in which Brandon brought up renttoretiremnet.com I have now been looking at Turnkey properties. As the market I currently live in is extremely hard to get into with additional properties, and even then they are likely going to produce negative cash flow, I have been looking into the midwest.

Some questions I have:

1. For a first time investor, would you suggest going after turnkey properties or trying to look for my own deals? I wouldnt be able to travel to the location personally to do my own inspection since I work a full time job still, so this is why I am tending to lean towards turnkey (Zach from renttoretirement also seems like a wonderful partner to start this en devour with).

2. For turnkey - should I put down more than 20% initially to increase cash flow and then try to pay off as quickly as possible?

3. Anyone from the midwest that could give me some insight or would want to partner up in the future?

Thank for reading and if you have any questions about myself, feel free to reach out directly!

Alex