New member from Buffalo, New York

[Julie Greene]

Like many other Bigger Pockets newcomers, I am so excited to have found this amazing resource for Real Estate investing!! Although I became a member this past summer, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to really start researching until now….so far I am overwhelmed with the information…in a good way.
As a quick background about me, I am a 42 year old married mother of two, living in Buffalo, NY. It is my husband’s hometown and we’ve lived here for the last 11 years. I love it!! We run a small investment management firm (it’s just the two of us – he’s the investor, I take care of the books), and we owned a two family house from October 2001 until October 2012, in the Elmwood Village area. We lived in the house for the first six years, renting out the lower apartment as of June 2002 (2bd, 1ba). When we moved to a single family home in July 2007, that same first floor tenant moved up to the upper apartment (4bd, 2ba) with his fiancé! We then proceeded to rent out the lower floor to others. We were fortunate that every tenant we ever had in that house, we got through word of mouth. We put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into that house, fixing up the lower unit before renting it, and fixing the upper unit as we were living there. We had talked often in the last year about selling, but the only thing we’d done about that was put a “make me move” $$ figure on the address in Zillow. Well, last summer, we were approached by a real estate agent who had been scouring our neighborhood (it’s in a desirable area of the city) for one of his clients who was looking for a two family home to live in (and rent out). It happened to be what he wanted, we agreed on a price….and several months later (after some bank delays), we closed.

Now we are ready to move forward with researching all of our real estate investment options, and determine what the best path for us to take will be. We never dreamed that there were so many different ways to invest. Prior to this summer, I'd never heard the word "wholesaling" in reference to real estate. And prior to today, I'd never heard of a bird dog (and I still need to look up what that is!). For some reason, our initial inclination is to move into wholesaling…but with that said, there is a lot to learn, and I wouldn't be surprised if we change our minds during our educational process. We are also interested in finding out more about becoming a hard money lender and learning about flipping. We are also still looking for a larger, commercial property. Initially, when we didn't realize there were so many different options for REI, we merely wanted to improve our economies of scale…..i.e., purchase a building that had more units….so that if we were mowing a lawn or doing snow removal, it was covered by more than just the rent from two units… so that search continues, and maybe we will find the right fit, and then ALSO be able to active in another area of REI. So many possibilities! One thing is for sure. That is that there is an abundance of highly intelligent, educated people in this community. The fact that you are all so willing to help out fledgling investors with your knowledge and experience is mindblowing.

So thank you @Joshua Dorkin and all the mentors at Bigger Pockets. My husband and I are very much looking forward to getting to know many of you and learning as much as we can. We are so happy to be here!