Thanks BP! There is no doubt you're the premier RE investing platform!

[Mark Updegraff]

Hey Everyone,

Just thought I would give a shout out to BP and thanks to everyone both local and afar that have helped me get to where I am today. I was sending @Joshua Dorkin a message earlier and it dawned on me just how important BP has been during my last year.

For a little background, I started investing about 8 years ago, and didn't find BP until I was a few deals in. I shared my school of hard knocks lessons, and immediately emerged myself in the community. The quality of mentorship in the open forums absolutely blew my mind, and I was excited to learn, grow my business and pay it forward to others coming up in the ranks. A lot of the important aspects of investing in RE is local knowledge, and I knew that though I was not a rock star investor, I could still give back valuable insight to others that were both in my market, or contemplating getting into it.

Fast forward to last year. I decided to get my RE Salesperson license, to get my broker's license, to hang under my management company. In doing so I decided to hang my salesperson license with RE/MAX, which is a great company if you have the volume. I decided that I was going to go for it full steam ahead, while running my other companies. In order to get my broker's I would need a fair amount of closed sales anyway. In less than 1 year I had more than enough points to qualify and using my combined investment experience I've sent in the form to DOS and should have it very soon.

My first year as an agent went quickly, and I really had no advertising at all. My first client was my employee, and my second was a friend. I took out copious amounts of expensive adverts on Trulia and Zillow about mid year, but looking back on my transactions to date, Bigger Pockets is by far the winner on quality leads!

I would like to give shouts out to

@Frank Oudheusden @Derek Hansen @Dave Savage @Mark W. @Michael Wagner @Shawn O'Shea@Wayne Huang

I had an extraordinary time working with all you! I hope my passion for investment properties helped you on your journey and I look forward to working with you all in the years to come.

Thank you so much for your support. I know you all learned a lot of valuable lessons along the way, as did I. Happy investing in 2014, let's see what this crazy market does!

[Dev Horn]