I've always said I would dabble in real estate as a retirement career but at 50 with probably 10+ years left in my marketing career I find myself jumping ahead a little.  It's all sort of happened fast in the last three years with my dad passing away.  He had a few properties in Florida that I have since taken under my care.  When my son went off to college, we found it much more affordable to buy a condo for him and let his roommate pay the mortgage.  Like a mini house hack I suppose.  We also have a short-term beach vacation rental in SC.

So, like I said, this has all been sort of cast upon me... and I could not be happier!  I'm glad I found this website, the podcasts and fine people who all seem focused on helping each other rather than competing against each other.  It's refreshing and I've learned so much in the past month.  

The meetup I went to the other night in Atlanta was extremely well done.  I thought it would be myself and maybe 5 other sitting in a awkward circle.  I could not be more wrong.  There were probably 100 there and the guest speaker was a candidate for Governor in the upcoming election.  It was all very insightful and I met a couple of people.  Shout out to Watson and Naveed!

With all I've learned recently, I have been inspired to start trying to close on more properties.  I just set up a lead generation squeeze page and ordered some business cards.  There's some specific areas I have an interest in buying both in Georgia and Florida.

The Bigger Pockets community has inspired me to not wait and start now to obtain that "retirement" life a few years ahead of plan.  It is truly possible with all of the information that is available on Bigger Pockets.  It's like drinking from the real estate firehose of knowledge.

Thanks y'all!
(as we say in the South)

Best regards,

John S. Dodson