Aspiring Investor in SW MI

[Travis Olszewski]

Hi all!

Just wanted to introduce myself. It’s a long one so please forgive me. Currently I am a commodity manager for Global Electrical Components OEM. The job is great and pays well, but I’ve always had a desire to run my own business. The problem is, I have not been able to figure out what I wanted to do until literally a month and a half ago. See my family and I just moved into our dream home last August of 2021. It was my grand parents house for 39 years, on 5 acres, close to family and lots of outdoor activities we can do from going on nature walks, hunting, gardening, etc. My grandparents gave us a really good deal as well, so we have about $70k in equity. All is great from that perspective. The house still needs many updates, so the first area I’m tackling is the walkout basement which I started  January. Basically doing a whole remodel from tearing two walls out, building new walls,  drywall, running new electric, etc. Well one day as I was applying mud on the drywall, a light bulb went off in my head. It was a feeling I’ve never experienced before and I knew right away what I was going to pursue. That was doing something in real estate. I started to connect the dots from remembering my youthful days working with my dad and grandfather as a handy man in the summers to the first home purchase in 2015. The connection of that first home really is what made it click. That first house had just one owner, was very outdated but located in a A/B neighborhood. We got a very good deal as we were able to negotiate $20k under list. So for 5-6 years I put in a lot of sweat equity to update every room in the house, even finished the basement myself. Last year we were able to sell the house for roughly $100k over what we paid. We used the cash from the sale as down payment for the house we are in today, paid off a student loan, and bought a car (🤦‍♂️). Felt pretty good at the time, but looking back and what I’ve learned I would have invested most of the money in real estate (live and learn). Fast forward to the house we are in today and updates I’m doing, it really isn’t being done to improve and sell the house, but more for our personal enjoyment and maybe some increased equity. I realized I was addicted to improving a property and getting financial value out of it just as much as the personal gratification. I knew all the money I put in, I’d get back when we sold. With our current house I don’t have that feeling from a financial standpoint (still there from personal gratification) as we want to stay here forever basically. So the past month and a half I’ve been in the learning phase from listening to BP podcasts to reading books to meeting with my realtor. I still have a lot to learn and definitely need to start saving money up to get that first deal. But I’m excited and know this is my journey for the future. My personal goal is to be out of the rat race in 10 years. 

Anyways looking forward to learn more. I really appreciate bigger pockets and the amount of information the provide (for free!). Also if anyone reads this that is located in SW Michigan let’s chat! Or if you know anyone, I’d love to connect.