Transition to owning apartments

[Stacy Adams]

Have any of you gone from owning no property, to owning several individual properties, to eventually an apartment complex? How did this process play out for you? Was this your goal from the beginning? How did your portfolio change year to year?

[Brian Briscoe]

@Stacy Adams

So, like most people, I started with no property...  I decided I wanted to get into real estate in 2005-ish when I was still 20-something.  Drove to a bookstore, bought books about renting SF rentals, saved some money up, and a few years later bought my first investment property.  Second one came right on the heels of the first.  Lending dried up, and I paused for a bit...

Fast forward several years, I decided that SF rentals weren't creating wealth and income at the rate that I wanted, so I decided to do multifamily.  I had mistakenly thought a few rentals would magically make me wealthy and financially free...  By the time I was 40, I realized that SF didn't scale well and the idea that retirement was a long long way away kind of disappeared...  So, I bought books on Amazon, listened to podcasts, bought more books, listened to more podcasts, started going to REIAs, meeting people, participating in forums, coaching, etc.  Sold my SF homes to jump into multifamily.

Really, my goals didn't change much...  I wanted financial freedom from the beginning, I just didn't call it that.  My timeline changed and I finally realized I wasn't moving towards it fast enough.

Portfolio went from 0 -> 1 -> 2 -> 1 -> 0 -> 55 -> 88 -> 168.

My net worth has gone up more in the last 12 months than it had in the previous 12 years.