WHO ARE YOU? What do you do besides real estate?

[Kyle Grimm]

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!

[Tim Robinson]

I'm a Relationship/ Small Business Banker at a Major bank in NYC.

[Michael Morris]

21 years in the Fire Service, currently a Battalion Chief. Planning to retire in 5-7 years and supplement retirement with real estate as a second career. I've remodeled a few homes for another investor and owned one SFR as a rental for 5 years before selling. Recently joined BP and educating myself on REI.

[Scott B.]

PE teacher and personal trainer in NYC. It's not working out so far to be honest b/c of the tight market and my particular school is not my favorite. However, I do think there is potential here because the stability of my day job can allow me to take greater risks in real estate with comfort and banks seem to want to lend to me.

[Ramon DeLeon]

Anesthesiologist - love this job but not fun doing 3am emergency hearts, trauma, aneurysms.  Love OB at all hours helping screaming moms get relief from simple epidural.  Believer in "no good things happen outside after midnight."

Mountain Biker - grew up with passion for BMX bikes as a child so transitioned perfectly into this sport.  I live 10 mins from hospital and I frequently start riding from my house to hundreds of trail miles.   Funny,  siblings in Bay Area & Houston commuting 3 hours/day why I live in a "podunk" town.

Mechanic - just my own cars, bikes, dirtbikes

Maintenance Man - Yippie!!!  Haven't done in years.  Not worth our time... 

[Mike G.]

I am in Business Development and Cause Marketing for an international humanitarian non-profit. I get to align companies social corporate responsibility with our work in various ways. It's very rewarding work.

Bought our first duplex in February and now saving for the 2nd one!

[Jon Mccarthy]

Well I love this question as I have offend wondered the same thing about others. I work at the sanitation department in Cheyenne, Wy and I just started a dog poop cleaning business so I can try to get ahead on bills and start making ground towards investing. @Kyle Grimm 

[Allen Maris]

I work in the film industry.

[Account Closed]

I am an ER Nurse. Am currently trying to get my real estate license and focus 100% on real estate. Investing and selling.

[Carlos Altamirano]

Hello! I was a self employed personal trainer before venturing into multi-family apartment building investing. As a a matter of fact, I still have a hand full-service of clients that I still service. It is something I always enjoyed doing. I now help and show people how to use some of their savings to create streams of income by investing in multi-family apartment buildings. Will be happy to connect with anyone! 

-Carlos 

[Carly Ogletree]

I'm a Field Representative for Primerica Life Insurance, student, youth minister, and certified MUA. I'm just now getting into real estate investing and eventually I'd like to do some house flipping. In next five years or so, I'd like to do so well in real estate that I focus more on my ministry and make up career.

[Ryan De Jong]

I measure for Granite Countertops full time and househack a 4plex, with 2 units long term, and one (soon to be) air bnb. I love my job driving around beautiful Colorado and meeting a ton of cool people. I also have a recording studio for making custom soundtracks and sound engineering.

[Joshua Dixon]

I'm a machine operator not the funniest job in the world but it give me room to do other things.

[Gwyeth Smith]

Great thread. I work in prosthetics (helping people with limb loss). It's a very rewarding field and not one I'm looking to leave immediately. With that said, I've always wanted additional sources of income so that my livelihood was not tied to one thing. I'm working duplicate my w2 income so that whenever the time comes, I can leave on my terms. I'm about 15pct there.

[Henri Meli]

Nice to hear from everyone. This is a great topic. Computer Engineer the last 23 years. Love the job, but no job is safe these days and I have seen too many horror stories in my line of work. I have gone through plenty of up and downs in my career to know that, it is always better to have a plan B, just in case... Did my first RE deal 18 years ago. Survived the 2008 market crash (thanks for one of my property that was cash flowing really well). 

[Jay Hinrichs]

not sure this is germane to me.. as all I have done since I was 18 was either sell real estate.. invest in real estate build homes or subdivisions and or played in the timber industry buying and selling timber land and stumpage.

but for fun

1. Travel

2. fly fishing

3. Aviation 

Need to

work out more  spend more time with grandchildren.. although once they get friends its game over.

[Zeshan Choudhry]

I work as a Royalties Coordinator for music publishing firm. I have jumped from job to job over the last 4-5 years and really haven't found something that I actually enjoy. I find it a chore to have to go into the office and it feels like I'm wasting 8 hours of the day! (Although I am grateful to have a steady income)

I have been able to buy a couple investment properties (under 100k each) as rentals, which I could not have done without my employment income.

I definitely do enjoy real estate and am looking to kick start my wholesaling and flipping business in Florida!

This is a great topic and it's very interesting to get a number of different perspectives.

[Jon B.]

I am a Corrections Officer on the infamous Rikers Island!

[Bill Dudley]

Ello,

I own two businesses here in my beautiful state- Texas and my goal is to expand. My next venture is a real estate company. I always try to strive for early financial freedom. 

Nikki

[William Plymouth]

@Kyle Grimm I just recently quit my job to delve full time into my real estate studies.  Until i get the ball rolling I use Uber to cover my bills

[Gus Tsesmeloglou]

Hey I'm a Physical Education teacher at an Elementary school in Greenville, SC.
My wife and I just purchased our first rental property a few months ago. The tenant has been there almost a full month and she's great.
Summer is about to start and we have caught theRealEstate Bug! Big time! I can't stop listening to the BP podcast and listening to audio books on investing in real estate.
Anyway, we're coming up on my first summer break where instead of working summer schoo, we're going to try to acquire 2 more properties by the end if the summer! Wooh! We are aiming for 5 rental properties per year and bringing me home from teaching after having 20 rentals under our belts.

[Victor Gutierrez]

Hi there, my day job is letter Carrier, yes I am a mailman, and I gonna be doing it until I'm ready to take real estate investing as a full time job. The good thing is that with my w-2 is easier to get regular loans.

[Gannon Nikolich]

Hello everyone!

This is my first BP post and thought this was as good was as anywhere to jump in. I have owned Queen's Pizzeria in downtown Mesa AZ for the 7 years (2010) after managing it before then. 5 years ago (2012), my wife and I decided to purchase a triplex a few blocks away for our restaurant. We did this instead of buying a house for ourselves. We planned on living in one unit and renting out the other two units as a form of additional income. Our target rent was $425/month (currently up to $675) for one bedrooms, but after we start marketing the property, we noticed such a high response to the property that we decided to look for a fixer upper.

We found a 2800sqft former office building that was last used as a mortgage company before falling into foreclosure. This property had a number of major issues including being completely strip (no kitchen or bathroom fixtures, missing backdoor, and no HVAC) property is also located on a busy street. The building was originally built as a home in the 40's and was converted to commercial office sometime in the 90's. We lived in the building and slowly worked to turn it back into a home. It was a challenge not having a shower or kitchen until we put them in. Made us realize how many things are need to make a place livable and what buyers will expect. We bought the property for at auction for $70k and lived there for just over 2 years to save on taxes. We finally sold it for around $180k.

While we had this remodel going on at home, we began to notice the downtown area was do for redevelopment. Light Rail was in the process of extending through the area and we knew our rent for the building was going to eventually go up. My wife was getting ready to leave her corporate job at Vanguard. The whole time she worked there we saved as much as possible in her 401k. By this time I was on friendly terms with the owner two doors down who owned his building and the one in between us. The renter who had the space between us was unable to continue through the light rail construction and I saw my chance. I went over and convinced the owner to sell me the building and carry the note. I was still in my 20's and in 2013 loans were difficult to come by. I offered 20% down and we agreed to 4% on a 12 year note. My wife and I pulled everything out of the 401k and rolled the profits from the sale of the house into a purchase and total remodel of the property. The building was never a restaurant and need extensive work to make it useable as one.

After going through all of that, we was felt ready to keep pushing for more and greater things. Some of the deals we've gone on to do, include purchasing the 5 units next door to our triplex, all of them on Center Street with flexible zoning. We also bought another building on Main Street and are in the process of restoring it to its historical beauty.

I apologize for such a long post. I have been a regular reader of BP for over a year. I'm excited to finally be posting!

[Boe Bishop]

Process robot technician

[Steve Vaughan]

Originally posted by @Josue Vargas:

I have to say, I've been seeing this for few days now on my key words alert.  These posts are non-sense to what we should be doing.  Please stop.  

 300ish positive posts - then you, Josue. Boo you, dude.

Did you know you can just ignore key word alerts that involve this thread?

Here's some more since you decided to whine about it. But surely these are already on your alerts list:  genius, whiner, whining, bored, boring, lame, non-contributor, apathy, apathetic, me, mine, selfish, all about me...

[Matt Judd]

Kyle Grimm Great post! I am a middle school math teacher and athletic director. I live and work overseas. I, like you am trying to jump start a real estate career. I am less motivated by money and more motivated by establishing rental properties and by managing properties for others to the extent that I could successfully move back home again. My motivation is to come home! Although my kids get to travel to some amazing places and experience new cultures, there is no place like home.