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Updated about 7 years ago, 11/07/2017
WHO ARE YOU? What do you do besides real estate?
Hello BP nation!
My question for BP nation is what is your day job? Although we would love to be, most of us are not yet full time investors.
As I grow older and try to figure out the direction of my career, I love hearing the stories of other successful real estate investors and how they got there. I am currently...struggling... at my day job (100% commission insurance salesman) and dream of finding a job I can enjoy while I slowly grow my real estate portfolio.
So BP... What is your day job and what does your life look like trying to work it while you grow your investing career?
Ready...GO!
I'm a Baggage Handler for a major airline at LAX. I love my job :) because along with decent pay and benefits I get to travel the world for FREE! Unlimited free travel! It's a beautiful life :)
Originally posted by @Travis Tannahill:
Insurance agency owner. Love the flexibility this job provides along with renewal build up. As you probably know insurance is a long term game. I love what I do and helping small business owners with their insurance... but if real estate investments ever made me more than my insurance business I would have to seriously consider selling my insurance agency...
It's good to see another insurance agent on the forums. What kind of insurance do you sell? I focus primarily on the Medicare (65+) market, life/health/annuities.
Quality Engineer with an aerospace assembly company in Los Angeles. I did wholesaling for a time and know the hustle. I know how hard it is to make a decent income doing full time RE so I'll probably continue to invest as a side job for the near future. Takes the stress out of the job and the investing =D
I work in media for a group of radio stations. I just changed companies a few months ago and I'm loving it. My advice is that if you're not happy with your day job you should find something else. Life is just too short my friend.
This is my first post on BP. Thanks for starting the conversation.
I'm a real estate agent and musician. Between selling homes, booking and playing gigs, and being a father and husband, I'm definitely never bored. :)
I'm working on my 1st investment property now and looking forward to many more. Best of luck!
I am a Young Architect who has designed Division I College football stadiums, higher education buildings and publication schools. I discovered REI about 3 months ago and I am working on acquiring my first property. Lots of direct mailing!
I'm a 22-year IT veteran. Part of the senior technical folks (Director-level individual contributor) in a large IT company. Specifically I'm in the automation team where we spend time developing new software or investigating/implementing tools to automate various aspects of managing enterprise systems.
My entire career has been in RE in one form or another. I have a degree in Urban planning and have worked for a number of municipalities in their planning dept.
About 3 years ago I went full time RE. By day, I am a full time investor focused agent, by night I am a RE investor. Currently I have 10 properties and growing.
DO NOT QUIT YOUR DAY JOB! Keep your w2 income and health care as long as you can. It is easy to leave a job, but hard to return. If you are living off your investment income, what will you use to grow? I see people encouraging others to just go for it. If you are young and do not have a family, why not. If you have a mortgage, kids, spouse, etc. then be conservative. There are always stories of, "I jumped in without a plan and now I am a gillion-air. It does not work like that for most people. There are very few published stories of, I jumped in and got my head handed to me on this site. There is a good reason, they leave and never return.
Kyle Grimm by the way this is an awesome idea for a forum I've enjoyed seeing what people do outside of BP!
Microbiology lab assistant. I also freelance as a shadow broker.
I am an associate engineer for public service of Oklahoma, and I run my own dog treat business :). My husband and I have been saving 70% of our income for the past year and this extra money we are wanting to invest into real estate. We are going to get pre approved next week and hopefully take the next big step soon!
Professional accountant and tax adviser. Mum big time. Helping young people to focus on their dreams and not be afraid of making that step of taking a risk and invest.
My mum used to use: "if you don't take risk, you don't know if you won"....
On side, real estate was always my passion. Got one rental and negotiating two more at the moment.
Keep going and don't look back.
It's fun to read everyone's stories. I'm a SAHM to 6 kids right now, ages 1-15. I went back to school online a few years ago and got my business degree with minors in accounting and fraud investigating. Hubby also went back to school and is now a high school social studies teacher/coach and loving every minute of it. He also a grad student and will eventually get his PhD. to be a professor. We used to own a big remodeling company in Minneapolis until the crash when we lost it. I also sold real estate for a couple of years after high school but quit because I moved out of state.
I just bought my first 8-plex last month and am working on fixing up units as people move. It's 40 years old and some have not been updated much at all. I do a lot of the work myself because I grew up with a dad that is a contractor. I know how to do most things. I do most of my work on the building in the evenings and on weekends. Looking forward to hubby having the summer off so time will be easier to find. I'm hoping to increase the value and reinvest.
Our previous house was a repo that we completely remodeled and lived in for 3 years. We sold it on a CD and are waiting anxiously for it to finalize so we can use the payout to reinvest as well. We would like to do a few flip houses around our area and hopefully use the profits to purchase another multi-family.
I have wanted to do this my whole life, but life kept getting in the way. Our 13 year old daughter is handicapped, so I will always need to have a flexible schedule. This works great for that! I'm exciting to finally be doing it. Thinking about getting my RE license again, but debating whether it would be a smart idea or not. I'm not doing that many transactions and I worry about the liability issues that may come with it. Any advice on that?
Other than my investment /development firm, I own a management consulting business. I am also an executive at a contract compliance firm.
I'm a navy pilot but just got out of active duty this month and am now a reservist flying part time. I have transitioned to running my real estate business full time and flying occasionally now. I'm home with my family a lot more now where I need to be, so that has been a great change for us. It's also nice to be able to set my own hours and work when I want to allowing me to take my son to school, pick him up, make dinner, etc... I always thought I would spend a full 20 years in the military but things change so I made a pivot.
Great thread, thanks for starting it.
Medical Device sales manager in addition to doing my own real estate and helping others with theirs. Love RE investing and managing properties.
Serial entrepreneur since my late 20's. Everyone is different, so you need to know yourself and be true to your own path. Your strong desires are your first clue that your path may be to skip the J-O-B. My first 7 years after college I did the expected job thing. Since then, I've never taken a job unless it appeared to deliver specific skills and/or relationships I sought; never just for money. (I might have learned that from Robert Kiyosaki?) It's worked for me, albeit with meditation skills to get me through the lean scary times. But, it's not for everyone. Many people need the flashy stuff for social approval or something I've never understood. My freedom has always been far more important to me than that. But again, it's not for everyone; I'm a nerd at heart.
I work full time in the Health Insurance business as a Manager of Analytics. I put in about 40-42 hours a week.
I'm a few weeks away from closing on my first real estate investment deal. I plan to to rehab and rent it out and get experience with land lording.
Great idea for a thread.
Currently splitting time as an inside salesperson / production coordinator.
Also am an endurance athlete specializing in triathlon and marathon.
Sometimes it can be tough to find time for real estate but my goal is to build that rental portfolio to build the design lifestyle.
Give me a shout if you love to swim / bike / run in your area!
So many replies, so much diversity! It's awesome to see how so many walks of life can share a common interest. I work for a large utility company doing HVAC and appliance repair. Which is amazing because I can fix almost anything in my houses. And if I can't fix it, you better believe I know a 'guy'! The utility side comes in super handy as well. I don't mind my job. Lot of freedom and perks...and the pay is great. I'll gladly do it until I'm 55 if real estate can free my fiancé up from her job to spend more time at home and work at her leisure.
Best of luck everyone!
I'm an Electrician here in the Bay Area. The pay is very good and it allows me the opportunity to save quickly for my next rental property. The career path that I am on has potential to scale income through Project Management positions that are both salary and performance based. It also gives me tremendous confidence in estimating construction costs for rehabs, and a deep network of skilled tradesmen to draw from when I do a project. While I do not want to stay in construction for more than 10 years, the income, network and flexibility is an essential part of my wealth building plan. I would encourage young people to look into skilled trades as a career. You develop practical skills that are in high demand, which allows for many different opportunities, especially in REI.
Photographer here! Worked in fashion for awhile then switched over to interiors and travel.
My wife and I are currently in the process of buying our first vacation property, which we're super excited about! I've been self-employed for almost 2 years now and once we land this first property, the two of us will work on that new venture together :)
I'm a teacher. I do real estate in the afternoons and evening. For many of the younger people commenting, you might consider it. Not only do you get the benefits of helping children in your own community but you also have time after school, on weekends, and during the summer. There are a couple of nights when you're grading papers but if you manage your time during the day correctly there won't be many of those nights. My school runs from 7:20 - 2:05 and I stay after to do tutoring once a week. Most contract negotiations can be done through email so in between classes I can work on those if I need to. But most of the time I'm done with school stuff by 3:30 and I switch gears to real estate and can take care of everything in the afternoon. I don't have many properties to manage though. We'll see how well it works as I continue to grow.
I'm a remote software developer working with a government contractor building custom software for the US Government. I'm also a licensed real estate agent although I've transitioned from running a full-fledged real estate team working with buyers and sellers and mostly banks for REO residential properties here in Las Vegas to really only working with a few investors and using my license to find my own deals :-)