4 to 27 doors in 1 year on BP

[Andrew R. Lucas]

I found Bigger Pockets in May of 2016 while looking for help with my 1st flip. I got hooked on the podcast and officially joined the site on June 30. Little did I know that the tips, tools, advice, and motivation from BP would catapult my family’s financial security the way it has.

Let me paint the picture: Spring of 2016… I’m an extremely happy family man with a 3 year old son, a 20 month baby girl, and the most amazing wife (who was again Pregnant). My job as a Hotel General Manager is demanding, but understanding of family time. I’m also pursuing a master’s degree with 1 or 2 classes a semester. We already owned 4 rental properties that were acquired in the previous 8 years. Now we’ve saved up $30k to flip a house with a partner, and we are on the hunt.

May 6th we are the winning bidder of an online auction for a cute 1920’s bungalow. Here is where the fun began… Partner backed out before we got to closing. Now I’m stuck with a great property and not enough money. Through BP, I heard about other ways to get money fast. We took a loan against a 401k to complete the purchase and closed on June 6th. Then found an unsecured loan to rehab the property. Through the renovation I continued to lean on BP as my first source for answers. I did bring in a partner to help with the day to day renovations, because I just didn’t have the time that the rehab required. Time management, negotiations, partnering, and financing were all areas that I needed help and I found on BP. We finally finished the project in late August and just slightly over budget.

On November 21st 2016, I was sitting in a Labor and Delivery room waiting for our 3rd bundle to be delivered. We had been brought in early because the doctors wanted to get our little guy out sooner than he was ready. So, as we waited for his arrival, I continued to work towards our financial freedom. BP taught me to get a good team together and work with them to extend my reach. I was able to work out the final sales info for the flip, as well as coordinate the inspection and offer of another property all from the L&D room! That 5-plex that we closed on 1 month later will be baby Lucas’ college fund. I’ll write another post to detail that first flip, but the gist was that we cleared about $20k to be split with me and my partner.

We would have never purchased that 5-plex if I hadn’t heard all the great insight on BP. We were able to see the true value of this property while many others simply passed. We purchased it at $135k and was appraised at $210k at closing. We updated the units and made some exterior improvements and have been able to increase that equity even more.

Now here we are in July 2017 and we read and listen to BP every day. Every day I learn something from BiggerPockets. We increased our real estate holdings from $380k to $1.5 Million in just 1 year! My wife and I both Love our careers so we are not leaving them, even though our monthly cash flow more than makes up for 1 of us. We plan to double our current portfolio to 50 doors by next August. I have seen first-hand how the “snowball effect” works and I know we will get to our 50.

There have been many hurdles this last year. Many days where I was so tired that I didn’t want to move, but as long as we kept our goals in mind we kept striving forward. By following strategies, we found on BP we continue to be blessed with great opportunities.

What I’ve learned: 1. Keep your goals front and center. Write them down and talk about them daily.

2. Always be looking for opportunities. Always be talking about what you do

3. Time management is vital to sustained success. We would be stuck at 5 properties if we hadn’t adopted procedures to manage our time effectively.

4. Be grateful for your blessings and be willing to share those with others. Network!

5. Be patient

Thank you BiggerPockets and community for the motivation and education to get us here today!