We get a lot of this, and sometimes, it really does baffle me. As my profile says, I'm an affordable-housing handyman landlord running a small outfit out here in Pittsburgh and doing what I do is NOT EASY. It's significantly harder than anything else I've ever done. Not to be a jerk about it, but I've done my share of difficult things. I'm pretty sure my share was quite a bit more than some might believe.

So I feel my story is really only even possible here in the USA. I am a living example that real estate, starting from practically nothing, can take you places. I'm not claiming that running this outfit is passive investing, not by a long shot. I'm not sitting at my laptop on a boat in a marina with my multiple girlfriends du jour in thongs bringing me umbrella drinks every time I snap my fingers. But still, I'm getting it done, much more than I could have imagined some twenty ago before my first property rehab.

Newbies, WE ARE NOT YOUR ENEMY. The people who have been here for a while are not trying to bully you. If you feel bullied, if you feel your dreams are being quashed, well, you need more resilient dreams and more pressing motivation. We're disclosing the realities of this business, and many of those realities are just not pretty. Incidentally, no one is paying us to be extra-special nice to you while we do it. No one from BP has ever paid me a penny to write a single one of the 5000 plus posts I've written here (full disclosure, @Mindy Jensen did send me a T-shirt).

The reason I'm here is that I actually want to help, I'm actually looking for meaningful connections, I've actually found some here, and I am grateful. Really smart and capable people, who really understand this business, who have given me help and knowledgeable advice that is literally worth thousands on thousands of dollars.

If you feel that I or others in the forums have been unkind to you, please come here and air your grievances. I promise that I, at least, will hear you out.

CAVEAT: There are a lot of things established investors try not to say on public forums. Some aspects of any discussion like this (discussions of net worth, verification of one's holding, even my full name) should really be private. But once in a while, when the BS gets too thick and my eyes start to water from the stench, things need to be aired out and I will disclose these things in private in this discussion to someone who questions that I am who I say I am, or whom I think is not being fully truthful.

Sticky

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

58 Votes