Thank you from this little lurker

[Account Closed]

I’ve been following BiggerPockets podcasts and this forum for a little over a year now. I haven’t said much but I’ve been listening. This group of people are a HUGE part of why I am where I am in just 6 months. I’ve been on the fence about rei for a long time but never really thought it was something I could do. I lost my job in April and found out what it feels like to be disposable to a company that you give 110% to. This was right about the time I found this forum with all of the advice you guys were giving to each other most of my questions were answered before I could even ask them. I decided I would do it. I found another w2 job pretty quickly so that I could still qualify for financing. Got preapproved and began looking. Within a couple months I found my first property. A duplex detached, each with 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms with a neighboring lot thrown in. Both units were rented with one moving exactly when I needed to occupy after closing. My agent convinced the sellers to put the lot into a separate contract for $100 as long as the duplexes appraised for enough I would purchase both parcels. a couple weeks later, I was going to be declined by the underwriter because she felt it was an investment property. My lender let me know this before she actually hit the decline button which gave me an opportunity to write a letter. After my letter she decided to go forward. I closed on the duplexes and moved in in July. In September I had the lot, that I purchased for $100, appraised. It came back at 65k. I took that information to a local bank to pitch my big ideas to a commercial lender. Now i have a 50k PCL and the go ahead from the lender to move forward. Fast forward a couple months and I will be closing Friday on my first Airbnb property.

All that being said, thank you. Thank you for always answering everyone’s questions without judgement. Thank you for answering the newbie questions that get asked 100 times over and over. I never posted, but I was listening. I listened you guys and I ran with it. I don’t think I would’ve done the initial jump if I hadn’t lurked on this forum.

[Jennifer T.]

That's a wonderful success story! Congrats! I especially want to commend you for having a potential obstacle thrown at you, and thinking "outside the box", so you could still make it happen. It can be so easy to get caught in "I want to go to Y and have to take X road to get there". But some of my best decisions in my REI journey have come from looking for that "Z side street" to get to Y ;).