I am excited for the next one: I'll be in Patagonia most of January on hopefully an epic ride of 3000 back country miles on a motorcycle.

The horse property gives me a leg up.How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

It's not for everyone, but I like the ability to ride someone else's coattails so that I can focus on my day job and earn more money to invest. 

; some horse properties) but there is a lower cost subdivision there too and several mobile home parks. 

AOLs are just starting to be used more, if we never did anything that didn't have a large body of law behind it, we'd still be riding horses.

It's been a fun and wild ride :)

There were enough moments when I wished I could have been local even then, and "local" took a 20 hour plane ride. 

Also, I see that you're in Columbia, but if you feel like making the ride down to Charleston, REI Central is tomorrow night and would be well worth your time.

Ride out the W-2 a few more years and acquire as much real estate as you can.

P.S I got both the properties from builder's lender at around 6% for 30 YR fixed and will be planning for Cash out refinance on 1st property to get 70-80% of my down payment money back and invest those in getting more properties.For new construction, I am pretty much confident with my previous experiences and will be a smooth ride for me.