New member from Kalamazoo, MI

[Martin Fecteau]

Hi everybody,

my wife and I relocated from Canada to Kalamazoo some time ago. We mostly invest in the stock market  and have made good money so far but nothing beats the feeling of owning something tangible that you actually have control over.

In 2008, we built our first house in a neighbourhood under construction. We knew houses would appreciate a lot when it would be fully developed as many businesses would be attracted in this area and rumor were that a school would open at the end of our street. We lived in it for 2 years and sold it for a big profit in 2010. 

We then moved into our second house, also a new construction and again in a neighbourhood where we knew houses would appreciate. This time, we configured the basement (with separate access from the garage) so we could rent it. 

Having a "roommate" in the basement was really nice and we really liked our property so we decided we'd stay there for about 5 years before selling it.  At this time, all extra money was going into our mortage to pay a minimum of interests, which means more profit when we would sell it. It's all about profits!

We ended up living there for about 3 years because my wife was offered to move here for her job and we just couldn't miss this opportunity. Moving to a different country and speak a different langage was too appealing.

We sold the house and of course made big profits.

When we moved here, we decided to rent to give us some time to analyze the market before buying. The goal was to repeat what we did back in Quebec, ie build and sell for profit in a couple of years. Truth is, the housing market here is quite different than my hometown and I felt it was too risky. I was sad but I kept looking for opportunities.

After spending a long time researching for houses online, I stumbled across a blog of someone who was buying to rent and making decent money out of it. I started digging into that and found this website just after having read "retire young, retire rich". As  Mr Kiyosaki would say, my reality changed!

I realized that there were other ways to make money in real estate than build, let it appreciate and then sell.

So my wife and I are now actively looking for properties and learning as much as we can through this website!

I'm looking forward to share my journey with this community and learn through the failures and success of its members.