Trial by fire in Olathe, Kansas

[Jim Kilian]

Hello All,

My wife and I got into the real estate game without quite realizing it. She found a great 3300sqft + 1400sqft unfinished basement foreclosure for $115,000 back in 2013. Just the 2 of us in a 5bdrm house. Stayed there 2.5 years and then decided to sell. After all expenses considered we walked away with about $80k. Paid off some student loans and a car, with the rest we thought we'd try again. Market was overpriced so we looked for about 4mo, ended up finding a dilapidated duplex, actually was the 1 we rented prior to buying our house. Owner had moved and wanted to sell, got it at about 60% ARV. Tenants in place, weren't sure which to kick out. 1 decided they didnt want to pay the new landlord rent so it made that decision easy. Spent 2 mo kicking them out. Left us, literally a garage full of junk and a completly trashed house, 2 large dump container to get it all out. On top of that, cops were called multiple times in that period due to the live in son of the tenant being drunk and abusive. He finally took a swing at the cop and was arrested (after the 3rd call that day), mom was out the next day. Spent 3 months rehabbing and finally moved in. Been in there a year now and want to go find another here in Olathe. Am I crazy? I'm a recruiter and my wife is a real estate agent.