At the age of 18 (2005), after working hard during my mid-teenage years and saving well, I bought my first property in cash.  That is when my first real estate blunder occurred; despite that I bought it with cash directly from the city, they neglected to inform me that via zoning laws I could not turn that old firehouse into a residential home or retail space.  Then months later I leveraged another.  With this home, I fixed it up well and had tenants in one side, me in the other.  They paid for my mortgage, and this relative success made me forget about how aggravated I was about my first purchase.  Two years later, I was closing on my third in late 2008 when everything was obviously hitting the proverbial fan.

To make this long story as concise as possible, I saw my property value sink, tenants became hard to find, thus ultimately I took the potentially bad advice from my attorney friends and filed bankruptcy.  I learned the hard lesson that confidence and passion are not the only essential ingredients in the making of a successful business.  I needed more education and direction.

After some years away from real estate, I found that I never lost the passion.  It was always in my mind.  I kept telling myself that after I'm older, more successful in some other industry, I could buy some property.  However, as the time passed and I educated myself more, I realized that real estate investment and management is the right career path for me.

Now I am aiming to get back into the industry through property management as I find that to be a quite interesting profession, for which quality firms are allegedly difficult to find (I say this through my own experience and through reading BP and listening to the podcasts).  I haven't been successful yet in finding a firm to work with for the next few years, but I am continuing my search in a few principle markets, especially NC's 'research triangle'.

Thank you all for keeping this community going.  I've already reaped much reward and I look forward to future correspondence with you.

-mc