My 1st home purchase (13 years ago)

[Adrian Smude]

My first success story was a property I purchased in late 2003. To set the stage, my friends and I were renting a nice house in a nice neighborhood, but we were not good tenants. In fact, we were getting evicted. My mortgage broker cousin suggested that I buy a place instead. A $1,500 check later and closing costs rolled into the loan, I purchased a home! Of course the friends that helped me get evicted moved in with me; this worked out better than you'd expect. As a friend decided to move out, I went to craigslist to search for a new roommate. Over the years I remodeled and updated the home. As nice as it was to get paid to live in the home, my future wife didn't want to live with roommates, so we purchased a home just for us a few years ago. Fast forward to 2016, we refinanced my first home from the 30yr 7% fixed into a 15yr 3.5% fixed; this increased cash flow & saved about 2 years of payments. Overall, this was a great early move in my life to start out in real estate investing.