Newbie from Moonachie in Northern New Jersey
Hello Biggerpockets Community! I’ve been listening to the BiggerPockets Podcasts for a little over a year now, and feel like it’s about time I interact on the forums and introduce myself. I am a recent college graduate of Stevens Institute of Technology and am now working full-time as a Mechanical Engineer at Picatinny Arsenal. I am very happily married to a wonderful elementary art teacher. We are both very interested in getting an early start towards our goal of financial freedom. We both like the idea of becoming buy and hold investors. Our goal is to buy a 3 or 4 multi-family property along RT.80 in North NJ by the spring. We are both smart with our finances and very good at living below our means. We’ve paid off our student loans, have no car payments, and live on the second floor of my parents house(We pay them rent and get along great). I feel we have finally saved enough to put 20% on our first Real Estate Investment Property. I am currently shopping around for a pre-approval, I think I will end up going with my Credit Union.
We both have no real-estate experience, but in preparation we have been listening to the biggerpockets podcasts on our commutes to work and have thus far read/reading:
-BiggerPockets Ultimate Beginners Guide
-ABC’s of Real Estate Investing
-The Richest Man in Babylon
-Millionaire Next Door
-Bigger Pockets Rewind
-Investing in Duplexes, Triplexes & Quads
-What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know about Cashflow
-NJ State’s “Buying a Home” guide(Great reading for a first-time home buyer)
And although I have no Real-Estate Experience, I do have some similar experience since I used to buy and sell cars to put myself through college. I made my initial investment capital by working nights at Taco-Bell; The day I quit, I bought my first car - a 1999 Mitsubishi Mirage, it took a month to flip it, but I more than doubled my initial investment. I went on to sell 18 more cars during my college years. I would buy low, and learn to fix what I could through watching youtube. I graduated in 5 years with a bachelors and masters, and minimal student loans. Because of this experience, I feel strongly that my Wife and I will do very well in the field of Real Estate Investing. I hope to get to know and learn from the seasoned investors in the area. We are interested in joining in on any local meet-ups in the area. Thanks for reading, I hope I don’t sound too boastful, I just want to let people know that I am a serious investor. Based on everything I have said, what next steps should we take before buying an Investment Property?