Long term goals, and then figure out realistically how I would achieve those goals, and everything came around to ----- Real Estate.I've been reading BP for over five or six months now, and while I have two very close friends in real estate (one in AZ, one in Cali), I do not pretend to know anything about it, nor do I plan to be as aggressive as a lot of people here with flipping and such; however, I do understand that if leveraged effectively, it can help me reach my ultimate goals, while also doing some wealth building as a nice bonus.I left the insurance industry about five years ago to pursue some other endeavors, such as starting my own travel agency; doing freelance writing around food and travel, and launching a website all about women in the culinary industry.

Are you considered a dealer, I suppose you will be.My point up there was that underwriting is not cut and dry, it's a process that leads you to a justified decision to advance credit of fair and equitable terms that can be achieved by the borrower. 43%, 46%, 49% they can all be done, in compliance.

Daniel, Your question can only be answered by you, What I mean is where does your desire lead you, where dose your situation put you and what is it your looking to achieve, Cash flow or one time cash payment, landlord or flipper, short term or long term or mixture of both investor?

I myself have goals and as long as I achieve them (ethically at minimum of course) I am happy.

In 19 years and with 15 units, I would estimate 50% of our tenants achieved a full refund of the security deposit, 40% just shy of a full refund, and for 10% a significant amount of the security deposit was not returned.

It was all about the exercise and if the deal ended up rolling, well, then I achieved the ultimate goal I set.

Unless you view RE as charity, don't treat it as such.Secondly, I view money as freedom and achievement.

For instance people do not just accidentally go to work and arrive on time; they predetermine a goal to go to bed the night before at a reasonable hour, purposefully set their alarm, use will power to get up when it goes off in the morning and plan their route according to traffic before leaving the house.This just goes back to habitually setting goals, making a plan to achieve them, preparing ourselves, and using will power to accomplish those goals (no matter how seemingly big or small)!

My background as a professor of philosophy and more recently as an attorney give me all the tools necessary to over analyze and become paralyzed to action so I need resources like this one to help me be confident in my choices and to give me motivation to take the plunge.My goals in real state are pretty simple: I want to achieve financial independence for my family and establish a nice portfolio of assets that I can pass on to my children.

I signed up after a friend mentioned this is a fantastic site to learn about real estate investing.As I stated, I am new to real estate investing, but I am ready to soak up information on how to get started, how to build a real estate investing roadmap, and generate wealth.My goals are to build a portfolio to help my family achieve independence from the typical "8-to-6" job and learn techniques that are successful and repeatable.One principle that I have learned in my early learning is that this will take time and effort.