Hi All!

[Laura Hafer]

Time to introduce myself! I recently found and joined BiggerPockets and am finding myself staying up way too late most nights reading through this forum!!! What a wealth of information!

I am 35 years old mother of 2. I live in Houston, Tx. I have a different background in that I am a nurse, but am a stay at home mom now. I have zero desire to go back into nursing. Real Estate has ALWAYS been something that I love researching and watching. My husband gets mad at me when I constantly send him links to houses for sale, telling him this is a good deal! He always thinks I want to move - I don't! I just tend to know a good deal when I see one. And then I get sad when I see them snatched up within a week. (For those that know Houston - HAR.com is my best friend, and I search on it daily!)

The only true RE experience I have is building our homes. We built our first home back in 2006 (near the height of the market unfortunately), and sold it (at a loss) in 2009. I learned quite a bit from that process - both in the building of the home, and in selling our house. We built our current home in 2009 and plan on staying here indefinitely, unless something changes!

I have been to several Lifestyles seminars and find them intriguing, mainly because I feel like I need a bit of a road map to help me not feel lost, because all of the information can be very overwhelming.

I'm also tinkering with the idea of getting my RE license. Everyone I know (friends and family) tell me what a good agent I would be. I have helped quite a few family members and friends find their homes (even out of town) when their own agents weren't doing their job. I love helping people find their perfect home.

I'm also wanting to get into the investment game. This is where I get confused about being a realtor, and what would be best. Since I technically don't earn income, it would be my husband's name on the contracts. So would me being an agent hinder me or be helpful? I really want to get into buying single family homes as rehab them and possibly hold them or sell them depending on the situation. I LOVE doing projects around my own house, but my house is only 3 years old - not too much to renovate just yet!! I love building stuff and doing wood work - I have my own little wood working shop in my garage. Most people who see it assume those are my husband's tools. Little do they know he gave me a miter saw, table saw and Kreg jig for Christmas last year (and I found all my other tools for steals on CL)! :)

I just purchased The Book on Flipping Houses and The Book of Rehab Costs by J Scott and can't wait to get started reading them!! I've also read Rich Dad Poor Dad, and several other books of that nature. I am really looking forward to getting my feet wet in REI, I just feel a bit leery about getting started and making the wrong move! Guess I need to just do it!

Thanks for having such a wonderful and welcoming forum!

Laura Hafer