Supportive wife turns competitive (in a good way)

[Hallie Blackwell]

I'm not a naturally competitive person. I love board games, but I don't care if I win. I teach recreational dance, but won't take my students to competition. I'm not a good person to add to your recreational softball team.

But I'm finding my competitive side in real estate. 

My husband was interested in real estate early. Both of our families had experience in real estate investing, but I think his family had better experiences and more positive stories to tell. I always understood that real estate could be a good investment, but the payoff never seemed to be worth the time and energy investment... or the risk. (I heard a lot of horror stories.) When we decided to buy our first home, though, I realized how much I enjoyed trying to find a good deal. We both have decent incomes (from our day jobs) and could have afforded a large home on a nice piece of property, but we decided to halve our budget and buy a foreclosed fixer, knowing we would eventually rent it out. We did most of the rehab ourselves, and we realized that we make a damn good team.  

But then I got a new job (I'm a college math instructor), so I let him continue his real estate dreams while I focused on work. He bought a condo, and I wasn't involved at all. 

I got involved again (kinda... you'll see) when we found our current home. I was looking for a property to buy as an event space, a blank canvas building (like a warehouse or a barn) since I noticed there weren't many while I planned our wedding. I found a house with a barn, told my husband I wanted to live there, and he drove by. He was intending to hate it, but ended up loving it. We talked about a it a long time, but realized we could pay most of our mortgage by renting pieces of the property we didn't intend to use: a cottage (as a day-use only office), a MIL apartment, and and a horse arena. We didn't ever use the words "house hacking," but that's basically what we did.

Most recently we furnished the MIL apartment and put it up for rent on Airbnb, which was my project. It's been going great, and now that I have some momentum I've been more involved and more interested in educating myself about real estate investments. I want to know as much (or more than?) my husband -- and I have a lot of catching up to do... which is why I'm here!

So, hi :)