Hi all! I'm a relatively new investor located in Tallmadge, OH (just outside of Akron). Some brief history: my husband and I actually became landlords by necessity in 2007 when we found ourselves unable to sell our home due to the crash. We were completely green, had no idea what we were doing, and made a ton of mistakes (but learned a lot of what not to do...). We sold the house in 2010 at a loss, vowing never to become landlords again...(ha!)

We have had some positive real estate experiences as well: we purchased our second "investment" home in 2010 when we found a great deal, and moved in as owner occupants. We rehabbed the house and flipped it two years later, putting the money from the sale into "safe" mutual funds...3 years later we're frustrated by our returns and finally looking to get back into real estate, hopefully the right way this time.

I'm so thankful to have found BiggerPockets - we've learned so much from the site and the podcasts already! I'm trying to be a sponge and soak up as much advice and information as I can as we start this venture. We hope to start building a portfolio of rental properties over the next 10 years that will help fund our kids' college tuition, and then eventually supplement our retirement income. We're also contemplating doing some flips in order to gain more capital for the rental properties. So far we have placed an offer on a short-sale property, and I just sent letters out this morning to some absentee owners that we found by Driving for Dollars this week (a concept that was completely unknown to me a week ago!). We're excited to get started and get to know some of you in the BiggerPockets community!