When I turned 18, I was faced with the sophisticated choice every American teenager is meant to make with extreme clairvoyance and levelheadedness. Go to college or Go to work In the contemporary professional climate, both choices are laden with their own respective risk. Over-qualification seems to be a phenomenon in the developed world, while higher education offers unparalleled social & educational development, it continues to be framed as the “safe bet” in the prevailing narrative. Influenced by my father's "get up & go" old school American bootstrap values, I decided take the road less traveled and get to work. I moved around the continental US for a while, exploring different career paths trying to find my place. I held a couple different jobs, I was: - a bouncer at a famous Jersey Shore nightclub - a Los Angeles mailroom clerk - a roadie for a Hasidic DJ for weddings in Brooklyn - a hillbilly carpenter - an assembly-line worker in a solar panel factory But after a while, I eventually got my "big break." At 21, I was hired as a junior project manager for a residential construction company in the upscale neighborhood of Rumson, NJ. I was making what felt like serious money at the time: $16.50 an hour. Very quickly in my new position, I realized that I had a lot to learn. I had some experience with woodwork & light electrical, but I was employed by a general contractor. I needed to know a little of everything to communicate between subs, keep track of projects, and be a point of contact for the homeowner. I had no particular edge, so I got to looking. I began to realize that (at least within the northern Jersey shore area) different cultures occupied different trades in the construction industry. It tended to loosely follow this structure: - Millwork & Finishing: Eastern European (Slavs, Poles, Slovaks) - Framing, Gypsum, & Roofing: Latinos (Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorians) - Flooring: Brazilians - Masonry: European Portugueses - HVAC, Electrical, Plumbing, & Insulation: Americans

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The reason we're all here is because we think mortgage notes are the best way to invest in real estate. Yesterday reinforced this belief for me. Let me set the scene: I'm in an ultrasound appointment with my wife (baby #3 coming in April!) and I get a frantic text from Amber, the tenant living in the 2nd floor apartment of my mixed-use building in a town about an hour away. I had missed her text at 6:43am: "Rob - sorry to bother at this hour... Woke up with an incredible headache and the carbon monoxide alarm going off. I have opened windows to air it out but that is speeding up the no heat. Can you get someone out here today?" Her follow up text sent me into a panic. And after calls to the furnace repair company (that had cleared screwed something up when they tuned up the machine last month) & the utility company to turn off the gas I called my tenant back with the instructions: "evacuate the building" But when the phone went straight to voicemail, text messages left unread - my blood went as cold as the icy wind coming through the windows in her unheated apartment... I feared the worst: she was passed out from carbon monoxide poisoning, unable to escape the apartment. I dialed 911 and an ambulance, fire truck and police were shortly outside the apartment. Tried to call her again, RELIEF - she picks up & is on the way out of the apartment. The firefighters get inside the basement of the building and find the furnace spitting out flames into the surrounding area - lighting cobwebs and anything they touch on fire. "You got really lucky..." was all the fire chief could say over the phone while he caught his breath. The furnace is toast but everyone survived. And my tenant sent me a text memorializing the close call: "The FD said the heater is “a mess and probably should be replaced as the issue has to have been building for a while as the reading in the basement was at 70 ppm and 50 will kill you!” It’s down to 17 in the apt now and had been cleared for me to go back in."

Hello Everyone. New member here . Hoping to meet some great people. happy holidays.

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