BiggerPockets Pro membership commitment to myself

[Jeffrey Honaker]

Hello everyone. Recent events in my life have forced my hand to be a full time real estate investor whether I was ready or not. In February of this year I was officially diagnosed with Marfan Syndrome. This condition is mostly invisible to the average gawker but is rather deadly untreated and undiagnosed. I am one of the lucky ones however and had early detection. The bad side is I can no longer perform my duties as a letter carrier or work a traditional 9-5 because of the degenerative nature of Marfans. I’m going through the disability process currently but nothing is guaranteed. Needless to say, but I need to figure out something in this real estate venture or I’m going to be in dire straits.

Last night I logged on to BiggerPockets and committed fully and decided that real estate investing is what I am and it’s what I’m gonna do. I upgraded to a pro membership and got to work right away. I have no safety net at this time. So I have to create one. I believe in the power of real estate and this community to help me achieve financial freedom through real estate. I have no other avenue. This is my resolution to myself.

I started buying property in 2014 and at years end 2018 I have 7 units. 3 duplexes and one single family home that I live in with my family. I’m been very fortunate so far and this has been a boon to my bottom line. But real estate is expensive. Naturally my postal salary helped with this venture as I was always able to rely on that to prove my buying power and could show the almighty W2 to the bank when it came time to purchase. This is not the case anymore.

I, however, didn’t want that to slow me down. Why just today I went and looked at a quadplex. This being a natural progression from my current buying habits as I want to scale to bigger and better. It was made easy with the checklist and other forms I printed from the website too. Because of that I was able to check all the most important things and I’m currently estimating a repair cost as well. (My next post will be asking help on this deal to make sure everything is going properly.)

I’m naturally most worried about how can I get this deal done without a regular job? I talked to a local bank recently and they said they were willing to work with me based on the merit of my rental business alone as long as I can have some strong numbers. I informed the sellers of this fact and notified them I would like to buy it through a lease purchase agreement as that is the cheapest way for me to get inside of this off market deal. If I can land this I believe I could cross over into the financial freedom zone as the number is much easier to grasp with my lifestyle and the cost of living in West Virginia.

I hope to continue on this journey. This post is for me and to make my commitment known. To breath life into this dream that I’ve had since I was 19. I have literally been saving money since that time to realize this dream one day. The time is now. You got this.