Newbie, military in NoVA, investing in TX!

[Greg Fend]

Hi everyone! Came across BP today while looking for some information and ended up listening to the latest podcast on the train home!

So...I'm Greg, currently living in Northern Virginia and the military has me working in DC for now. I decided to get into REI as a means to hopefully supplement my eventual military retirement. I have a townhouse in MD that I've rented out for about 3 years with a property manager, but never really did consider that much of an "investment" as I'm pretty much just holding onto it until I can get out of it without losing my shirt.

The bigger reason I'm here is that I just recently went in as a partner on three 4-plexes in Texas as an investment. We're going to have the properties set up in an LLC (the purchase is going faster than the LLC set-up). I'm looking forward to seeing what information I can find here to help make this a good success.

Another thing I'm curious about is how to structure my assets now. I've heard a little about self-directed IRAs, trusts, et al., but would really like to find some good resources to learn more!

Thanks for having me!
Greg