How we got to 24 doors in 3 years with no partners

[Brian Boyd]

I thought I would take a minute to share our journey into real estate investing and maybe give those in doubt about pulling the trigger some hope. 

In 2015 I noticed my retirement account just was not getting any bigger with the swings in the market and I was frustrated. My wife loves her job but for me my job is stressful and it never turns off. I check emails in the middle of the night, answer phone calls on my personal cell and constantly am available for my clients. It goes with the territory. 

One of my clients, and a good friend, updated me on his business and he was doing great. The business effectively ran itself and he was making a great ROI. I decided to pull my retirement funds out of my SEP and invest in a business just like his in 2016. It was not exactly passive, but once I figured that out, I was able to sell it for a nice little profit a year later in 2017.

So In 2017, I had a nice little stack of money and decided to do three things with it: 1) pay off some student loans; 2) buy my wife the wedding ring I always wanted to get her; and 3) invest in a vacation home that I could rent out. I did all three and bought a cabin in Gatlinburg, TN and it was disastrous as our management company was unable to get it booked and we lost thousands until we changed management companies. The following year, my wife and I both borrowed from our retirement accounts and bought two single family homes just outside of Nashville, TN. Nothing was making us rich, but we had some hard assets, some cash flow, and the notes were being covered by the rents. 

In 2019, my wife and I started listening to podcasts, and in particular Bigger Pockets. We started looking at our little portfolio and decided we  could do more with the equity in the Gatlinburg property than we were currently doing. Thus, we sold the Gatlinburg property for $65k more than we bought it for and took that money and invested in smaller homes that we could expect to receive at least 1-2% a month in rent. These homes were old, small, and not in a desirable area of town in Chattanooga, TN. We bought 8 in this first tranche and put around $10k in to each one, some more some less. Then we decided to sell one of the single family homes outside of Nashville, and made a tidy profit of $25k in one year by selling to a hedge fund. 

From that little profit and scraping together more money from retirement and savings, we bought another tranche of properties, this time 5. We put more money into those and got those rented. We had some money left and then we changed our focus from Chattanooga to Knoxville and bought a duplex and then a quadplex and put money into those as well and have those rented out. 

We are currently under contract for two more duplexes in Knoxville and while we continue to have our ups and downs (we are replacing an HVAC unit today) we have stuck to it. We have a great book keeper that tracks all expenses and income; we have an amazing CPA that helps us with Cost Segregations; we have a very good banking relationship with our bank and I handle all the legal work and tenant issues if there is a need for evictions. 

We spend a few hours a day, each day, handling all our properties, talking with agents, management companies, and bankers. It is work, but it pays off. So for those of you out there that are not sure if this is for you. It is work, but you have to get off the sidelines and get to it. 

Best of Luck to you all. 

Brian