How Our Family Real Estate Journey Began

[Jesse Turner]

Investment Info:

Townhouse fix & flip investment.

Purchase price: $264,000
Cash invested: $10,000
Sale price: $405,000

Townhome built in 2007 on the edge of city development. That area boomed and saw tremendous residential and commercial growth. When we bought our second property we turned this into a rental (your very first!) to see how we’d do as landlords and attempt to hold until the market peaked.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Watching my brother lean heavily into real estate, I wanted to make some money outside of my day job. This was our first home that we owned.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

As first time buyers we went with a local agent and found this option after a long parade of townhomes across both salt lake and Utah counties.

How did you finance this deal?

FHA loan

How did you add value to the deal?

We rented it out, then used that deposit to add some cosmetic improvements to the interior.

What was the outcome?

We rented at a break even rate for 1 year and then sold for a profit of $100,000+

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Being a landlord is not fun. We assumed a family with good income would treat our property well, but they let their kids destroy our basement carpet, got a pet without asking (which chewed baseboards), and broke off window curtain rods, etc. It was hard to handle the personal confrontation, so I look forward to outsourcing property management tasks when we can work it in to a cash flowing property.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Shayna Stanton helped us sell despite having only two offers right before this area switched to a buyers market.