Some encouragment for the Newer Investor

[Reggie Rearden]

Hopefully this will encourage all, specifically the newer investor:

My wife and I used to basically live paycheck to paycheck. We decided about 2 years ago that we wanted more opportunities and freedom, which is when and why we decided to begin investing. We decided last year to really hunker down and put ourselves in position to retire from our W2 jobs with in the next 10 years. 

I work 12.5 hr swing shift, she runs and works at our salon and our income tax businesses, and we have 4 young kids. We knew going into real estate would be extremely difficult with our schedules and having the little ones. 

We began our REI path with a buy and hold. We liked this but wanted more. We then bought a 3 unit commercial building, remodeled it and added an additional 2 units to it. Next, we bought another commercial building and 2 more SFHs. This past week we was able to do cash out refi's on 3 properties, signed a commercial LOC, and bought our first cash deal SFH. Looking back at this time last year, I would of NEVER that we would be where we are today.

Before we bought our first REI, we met with our attorney to lay out our short term, 1 year, 3 year, 5 year, 10 year, and long term goals. The attorney structured our LLC's and Holding company based on what our goals were. I definitely suggest anyone starting out to meet with a Real Estate Attorney and a Lender prior to looking at deals. We picked their brains and they helped us network. By showing them our Plans and Goals, I believe that they saw how serious we were and helped us network which is how we grew so quickly.

I know many people on here have fulltime jobs, kids, activities, etc. In our case, I work shift work and can not have a phone for 12.5 hrs while at work, my wife runs our 2 small businesses, and we have 4 kids, 3 which play travel baseball. We could've easily said we're too busy to invest. What kept us going is that we found WHY we want financial freedom and that is our driving force. 

The point of this post is that we used to think it would be impossible to do real estate with how busy we are. With hours on BP's forums, reading books, networking, and listening to podcasts, we are very close to being able to retire way sooner than we initially thought. Trust me, I could've made a lot longer and detailed post but this is just a synopsis. Hopefully this will motivate others that have super busy lives like we do. Don't make excuses, produce results!