New member in Washington, DC

[Sam Brummitt]

I have been a personal finance geek for a long time and found my way to biggerpockets.com through other personal finance blogs and podcasts. After listening to a number of the Bigger Pockets podcasts and reading up on real estate, I'm ready to dive into the Bigger Pockets forums and meet other real estate investors in the DC area. My girlfriend and I have stable jobs with the government and we max out our retirement accounts (TSP, Roth IRA, HSA), and we're now looking for ways to deploy our extra, after-tax savings. We've just starting looking into real estate. We rent a small two-bedroom apartment now and are interested in buying a SFH or a two- to four-unit property in the DC area and house hacking by renting out other rooms or units. We are also open to taking on some modest renovation work.

My first experience with real estate was as a young teenager, when I accompanied my grandparents as they shopped for a small, single family homes in my childhood neighborhood. They bought a house two blocks from where I grew up and I really enjoyed the summer I spent helping them fix up their place. I did a lot of odd jobs for my parents and grandparents, from mowing the lawn to painting a garage. In my 20s I moved quite frequently, lived in three countries, and rented a number of apartments. I’m now ready to settle down and want to get back into doing work on a house and dipping my toes into landlording through househacking.

I'm very interested in connecting with other Bigger Pockets members who have an interest in and/or experience with househacking and the programs available to first-time homebuyers in DC, MD and VA.