I hope to someday marry my love for art, photography and Realestate investing, to create something that is unique and desirable.I look forward to hearing from those who have a positive and honest perspective and who are looking to be supportive and inspirational.

The obligatory inspiring but incorrectly cited quote goes here.

Elizabeth, my intent is always to help, bring perspective, and inspire.

I have been enjoying reading the blogs and forums for a few months now and thought it was the time to start interacting with all you inspiring people!

Its not inspiring - which it should be. 

Funny you are the one to reply, Jon Klaus, as I got most of my letter inspiration from your recent marketing campaign that you posted on here a month or two ago (the one you did with Jerry Puckett).The copy of my letter is:Dear «Owner_1_First_Name», My name is Brandon and I am looking to buy houses in the EastBay area.

Your story is inspiring.

The books you listed are a great starting point to get your excited and inspired about making money in real estate.

In fact my wife and I both currently work in tech careers in San Francisco and J's story is a huge inspiration to us.Oh yeah, I've also listened to 22 of the 32 BP podcasts, in order, over the past 4-5 weeks whenever I get a chance (I probably could recite the podcast intro and outro in my sleep :).Anyhow, like J and his wife, my wife and I are both from back east (she's from Pittsburgh, I'm from Detroit), we just got married and we have a plan to spend a few more months in the Bay Area to shore up our startup capital before making the move back east to start a fix and flip and (and eventually buy and hold) business.I would love to get everyone's insight on the 3 markets we're considering settling and investing in -- as you can see each has its plusses and minuses but for us they all have to be weighed against the business opportunity:Our likely 1st choice: Pittsburgh -- prices here seem to be in the range we'd be looking for (average home price just over $100K, so our target purchase range would be $30-60K, with rehabs running about the same, though my numbers could be way off...); additionally there seems to be a good rental market here.

Thanks everyone for all the motivation/inspiration!