Bad partner leads to my motivation

[Scott Voytko]

Hi!

My success story began in 2008 when I bought my first rental property with a friend. My partner worked as a contractor, and I was the finance guy. I was way too scared to get started on my own, and needed someone to help with the stuff I didnt know (maintenance). My partner wanted to buy 20 houses, and I was too scared to go beyond 1...

We held the house for about 1.5 years and were great friends, until he did something where I could no longer trust him. I had to immediately cut ties. We had overpaid for the house by a little, so after 2 years we had no equity to sell. I wanted to sell it, and cover the losses myself, but he refused to sign the paperwork to sell the home or have me, as an agent, represent us as the seller. (although I wanted to do it commission free obviously, as we had no equity). He demanded a buyout, and since my father was the mortgage holder, I was put in a very difficult situation where I had to buy him out for a couple thousand dollars... out of a house with no equity!

This was in Florida and the market was still crashing. Luckily as the finance guy, I began to see the potential in rentals all around me. From 2010- present, I have purchased 8 more properties, and plan to go to our original goal of at least 20... by myself. Although I felt the buyout of a couple thousand was too much back in 2009, it has yielded me a 14,000% return on investment. Had this awful partner experience never happened, I would have never found the courage to buy more properties and begin to find my own financial freedom.