All Forum Posts by: Brandon Crouse

@Joseph Cox You essentially have free money sitting in your paid off home. I am new to this game too, but if I had a house paid off I would get a line of credit against it and use it to fund my first few deals. This is one of the suggestions Brandon Turner gives in his no to low money down book, which is worth the read if you haven’t yet! Hope this helps!

@Justin Koehn, @Aaron Nelson

Thank you both for the very warm welcome. I will definitely be attending some REI meets ups and making those connections!

Hello BiggerPockets Community,

My name is Brandon Crouse. I am 28 years old and I just joined BiggerPockets this September, 2018. I was born in CA but raised in Springfield, MO. I got interested in real estate investing in high school when my dad bought his first investment property. However, this was right before the market crashed in 2008 and my dad, unfortunately, lost his property. This scared me away from REI.

Since then I got married to my beautiful wife Melissa and we have two wonderful children. I joined the Army in early 2013 and am currently stationed in Washington state. I was done being afraid of REI and bought my first House in July of this year with the intent to rent it out after 3 years of living in it. I considered this my first "Investment Property".

I decided I can't wait 3 years to get started in the Real Estate Investing realm. My goal is to fix and flip my first few properties to build capital and get into rentals using the BRRRR strategy. I want to do this in and around the Tacoma, Olympia, and JBLM area but I am completely open to any deal that comes my way. I have 2 and 1/2 years left on my Army contract and my goal is to be financially free through passive income by the time that contract ends. So, it's time to start grinding!

I am looking for mentors, partners, and creative finance strategies. Looking forward to being part of this community while carving out some time for my hobbies; fishing and Jiu Jitsu.

I give all my thanks to God and cannot wait to get going in real estate with the family he blessed me with.

God Bless!