My Story of Investing

[Nick Watkins]

I started out at 22 years old making 23k/year in a warehouse. We attempted to buy our first home that happened to be a short sale..."not so short" we moved in because the Realitor told us it was a sure thing, long story short 4 months later the bank countered 10k above original asking price. So we found a new house that was a Homepath and paid 60k, it was in need of minor updates, but surrounded by homes in the 110k to 150k range. 1 week after closing I lost my job. 15 months later I had found another job again 23k/yr and I somehow convinced my wife to rent our 5 bed 2 bath house and move to a duplex 2 bed 1bath upper and lower units (62k) purchase price we put 3.5% down on a FHA loan. PLENTY of mistakes later and my single family home tenant broke our hand written lease LOL we moved back home and rented the duplex in full. This now paid for both mortgages on both properties. I hated my job so I found another one I hate and currently make 42k working 50+hrs/week. April of 2015 my in-laws were getting forclosed on and in talks the mentioned a thing called redemption cost for them to buy it back. In 2007 they paid $216k and the redemption was 88k i had NO clue how that worked, but I mad phone calls and was set up with a hard money lender because we had 5 days to pay off the loan. I purchased the home with what seemed a miracle. Now Feb 2016 I took a HELOC on my home and bought a duplex 104k. I still make 42k at my Job working crap hours but a paycheck that allows me to support my dreams.

Sorry for the novel,

Nick