Hey BP Community,

Read the books, heard the stories, and saw the results from the members on BP. Now my life is "ruined" :) 

As of writing this post, my Real Estate investing experience is a big fat 0. Like the thousands of folks in the BP community, I've had my life "ruined" by guys like Robert Kiyosaki, Brandon Turner, Joshua Durkin, and the hundreds of other investors who've shared their experience and success around escaping the Rat Race. The asset column for me looks like my checking account did at 12 years old :)

I'm a 31 year old San Jose native. I've been working as a tech sales rep since 2007 in the San Francisco area (huge surprise). The money is great, but the feeling I get when I see my commissions dwindle due to taxes after all my hard work selling complex products, I get sick to my stomach. With each paycheck, my gut wrenches a little more. Not any more!

Which leads me/you to my "WHY" for joining BP: simply put, I want my upcoming children to have Dad and Mom around. I want to be free, like many of you in this community, to live with larger amounts of joy and happiness that financial freedom provides. I'm also recently married to the love of my life, which is another, much more more glamorous expense in life :) Beyond the bay area cost of living, we're planning on having a sizable family in the coming few years, which will add to our "glamor expense". I'm going out on a limb here and guess children come with thousands of incredible moments and milestones that are, at least in the minds of my wife and I, non-negotiable to be a part of. Having a job in tech sales is not conducive to being in attendance at these events. 

So here's the GOAL: To be financially free and out of the Rat Race by 41 years of age. 10 years to freedom. My tactic: buy-and-hold investing in single and multi-family homes; with appreciation as the cherry on top :) I see this goal evolving into learning + profiting from other real estate avenues as well ( i.e. flipping, etc..)

The challenge: I live in California (Bay Area)....enough said, y'all know the barriers to entry here. So how to address this challenge? I love the house hack strategy to start, which could be coupled with long distance investing. The strategies could be endless. Any BP members who read this intro and have some ideas, as a newbie I'd eat EVERY bit of information up.

Look forward to learning and the journey toward financial freedom with all of you in this community. Lets get started...