Hello from a new Investor

[Harly Cook]

Hello BP! I've been living in Seattle (first hill area) for the last three years. I work as process improvement consultant for various companies. I'm looking to diversify my income and possibly create my own business. I've been lurking on the forums for nearly 6 months , I've read most of the BP books, and listened to most of the podcasts out there. I've been toying around with the idea of real estate for the past year, and I'm ready to start taking this journey in full earnestness now.

I'm looking to get into either buy and holds or wholesale. While I do have some decent savings, I'm not sure which aspect of real estate to get into first. On one hand, buy and hold seems like a good bet, but given that I would like to quit my day job I'm not sure if thats the best bet. I'm also looking at wholesaling, the entire process intrigues me. I have an old work associate that introduced me to the concept years ago and I know a decent bit about the mechanics of it, but not a lot of the specifics.  I've also toyed around with ideas to use wholesaling as a way of combining into a buy and hold strategy. As for fix and flips, while it intrigues me, I'm not sure I want to get into at least at this point.

Anyways, any opening advice would be appreciated. The specific question that I have is (other than where to start, I've got that basic idea down), is if I wanted to pursue either of these venture which area of the City should I be looking at? Specifically wholesaling, which markets seems to have the most activity in them? What are you other investors (buy and hold and rehabbers) looking at?

P.S. no matter what my strategy I would ideally like to stay inside Seattle city limits. I'm looking go as far south as west seattle, as far north as shoreline.