Hi, I'm Cory, newbie from SF Bay AreaI have a professional background in vision and blind rehabiltiation therapy, and work part-time, primarily with veterans and active duty military within the SF the Bay Area.

Seriously...I'm a wedding photographer and I can't count the number of times I've returned a call and the bride was shocked.

OK, maybe a couple veterans could help me out...im a first time investors and am wondering about where to go with my first investment..now im from the detroit area which was hit hard and doesnt have the greatest economy so my question would be,in a perfect world lets say that we have 2 identical homes one going for around 5-10k but needs 5 to 10k of work and one going for around 20 to 25 k but only needs a little bit of work...would it be worth it to save a few thousand dollars and but the fixer upper..now i do consider myself pretty handy and have tackled home improvement jobs before and have a pretty good network of experts in the home improvement field...i do plan on making a career out of this and figure we are gonna need the tools anyway as well as the experience....but i believe the first move is the most important which is why i leave it up too some seasoned veterans for help..thank you for your inputsincerely, ME

I'm sure some of the BP veterans here have some great stories to share.I'll share some creative paper deals in a bit.

Knowledge is power and Bigger Pockets diseminates more knowledge, to Rookie and Veteran Real Estate Investors alike than any other source.

The only thing that I may try different is to rent to special needs tenants like veterans.

In addition to the veteran trustee sale buyers, you will see "new" faces at these trustee sale auction.

Don't forget about leasing to organizations, veteran organizations, non-profits serving their clients, the 1/1s are ideal for organizations and they lease the entire complex annually or longer, you can also work out tax benefits with qualified organizations and the PR is great, they can actually bring you more business.

A couple of years ago at the Equity Trust conference an exec with them told how they photographed their child on the day of his birth and used the images for marketing.

I think the main difference between us is my veteran status - which means I get paid to go to school, on top of the money I get from work.