Newbie from (Long Island) Smithtown, NY

[Michael Anspach]

Hello from lonGisland New York. (Is that how you type a LI accent?) Found this site several weeks ago while looking for Real Estate Investment clubs or forums and have spent hours and hours so far. I have also listened to all the BP Podcasts and love them. I have made a list of favorite books from the podcasts and will be starting them shortly. Thank you to everyone for all the great knowledge.

As for me, I am a 35 year old married father of two little boys and currently work the daily grind as a PM for a large NYC Mechanical Contractor.
My wife and I purchased our first home, a small cape, in 2005 from the original owner. We extensively updated it to make it our own...new cherry kitchen with granite, moldings for window, door, baseboard and crown, paint, flooring, central AC, paver patio, landscaping, PVC fence.

We had a tenant (actually 2 different ones) in the upstairs 'apt' the entire time we lived there. Then in June 2011 we went to refinance and at the same time were told by our tenant he was moving out.

So my wife has this 'genius' idea to call her R/E friend and see what we can get for it. I, as the good husband, humored her and agreed to speak with him (being 100% confident we were NOT going to sell this house) and lose a ton of money.

So here we are almost 2 years later and we sold our house in Dec 2011 for a LOT less than we paid for it in 2005, lets not even talk about the upgrades me made.

However, it was the best decision we could have ever done. Thank you Honey! We moved into a large Hi Ranch (Which we couldn't have afforded in 2005) with more than 3x as much property and a yearly savings on property taxes and flood insurance of over $5k/yr as compared to the 1st home.

As for my Real Estate Goals. Not quite sure yet. The more I read the more I bounce around on what I want to do. If I could quit my job and just do it and know it would be profitable; I would love to Flip houses as I love construction and renovation. However, knowing I have to keep my day job for security I think I would like to buy/hold rental properties.

The current concern I'm having are: There are a lot of members from NY, but none appear to be regularly active..how come? Can this be done profitably on Long Island with prices and taxes we have? Is this really possible to do remotely and obtain properties out of state? Can I do this part time while holding my full time job?
Thanks for reading!