A friend of mine showed me this website and I've been obsessively listening to the podcasts and lurking the forum for a couple weeks now.I'm from the west in the US, mainly Phoenix and Las Vegas, but have lived in a suburb of Madison, WI for the last 6 years.My wife and I have no debt, good credit, a little wiggle room each month, a few thousand cash, a few more thousand open credit cards, and a will to learn with a drive to succeed.I'm planning on attending the August 8th meeting at the Madison REIA and have reached out to a Real Estate agent and Lender in my area in an attempt to start building a network in this community.I'm a veteran of the 82nd airborne with a strong work ethic, and I played poker full-time in Las Vegas for a few years.

I get it that everyone wants to come to the party, especially now with prices having risen fairly dramatically, but sometimes I wonder if the Bigger Pockets room is akin to standing on the floor of a casino where a few people have won dramatic sums in some of the "skills" games (poker, blackjack, etc), and everyone else starts running out into the hallways begging for money to drop in the slot machine so they can get theirs too.Anyway, it seems an interesting philosophical question to ponder, and I'm curious what others may think!

Lew Ranieri (you may remember him from Liar's Poker) is more bullish on these than the very product he created.

My brother and I started purchasing homes in 2009 and soon accumulated 11 houses by 2011.At that point, being an online poker player was drying up and my brother's industrial project manager position was at a crossroads, so we decided to open up a construction company and a property management company.Being an investor and a property manager is very helpful to providing service to experienced investor clients. 

REI is a lot like Poker...not because they are both gambling. 

Fundamentally, the problem is that the model allows for "lenders" to dump loans to GSEs with little or no skin in the game.

I gave up writing, guitar, time with friends and family, video games (laugh if you must), poker, vacations, pleasure reading, dating my future wife (we live together but date nights are far and few). 

Im a poker player and am not adverse to risk.

What's your end game?

While gambling, I bring only waht I am willing to lose and have as much fun doing it as possible.On the other hand, when playing poker (which is not gambling in my book) water and red bulls rule.