I’ve wanted to invest in real estate for about as long as I’ve understood the concepts of investing.  For a long time it was lots of reading and no action.  In the last few years, that’s finally changed.  I’ve managed to acquire a few rental properties.  I’m actually up to eight rental houses right now.  Not exactly Donald Trump, but I seem to do alright at acquiring the properties.  It’s the managing of them that’s a problem.  At the moment I’ve got 3 vacant houses and 1 non-paying tenant that needs to be evicted.  Not exactly a good ratio of occupied to unoccupied properties.  Thank God for the full time job keeping everything afloat.  But if I want to get to financial independence through real estate investing I’m going to have to turn this around.  So, this is my journal of my quest to become a better property manager and my experiences as an investor.  The short term goal is to do something everyday to work towards getting the houses rented and to document that process here.  We’ll see where things go after that.  It seems a long way off at the moment.