21 Years Old & Sold $8.2M in Multis in 2018

[Matt Lefebvre]

Let me preface this by saying... I've seen A LOT of posts recently of people under 25 asking for advice about getting into real estate.  And I think that's great, don't get me wrong.  I put out one of those posts when I first discovered BiggerPockets too.  Young people interested in bettering themselves financially and thinking about real estate while many others are focused on partying... that's a great thing!  Power to you!  

BUT... many of these posts go something along the lines of "I've got no money, no credit, no job, but how do I be successful in real estate?"  Wholesaling seems to be a common "get rich quick" path that people want to try.  Some ask about how they can get a seller to finance their first deal for zero money down.  Others want to try the complicated sounding master lease option.  But in reality... the odds of any of those things being the magic pill to creating massive success in real estate is slim to none.  

I took a bit of a different path, and since I probably caught some eyes with the flashy headline and the fact I posted this in the "Success Stories" forum... I'll explain a little bit of my story here.  I joined BiggerPockets five years ago as a small-town, 16 year old, New Hampshire boy, motivated to make it big in real estate but having no clue how to actually do it.  One of my first posts was polling the members here "is it worth going to college for a real estate degree if planning on being a full-time investor?"  (Spoiler alert) -  I didn't end up going to college and I gained a lot of valuable insight from the responses I got.  Ultimately I realized that to get into real estate investing... you do need money and you do need a job.  Otherwise you can't just buy properties!  

So I figured "well if I can't buy properties myself, I should do the next best thing which is sell them to people who can!" and that's how I decided to pursue the path of being a real estate agent.  I'll fast-forward through a lot of the details, but three and a half years after having gotten my real estate license, I'm closing out this year selling $8,218,300 of multifamily properties for a combined total of 117 multifamily units.  And contrary to my profile picture which still makes me look like I'm in middle school... I am 21 years old.  I've helped out a lot of first-time and a lot of experienced investors alike... both with buying properties and selling properties.  This year was a huge win for me and I'm very happy with the success in my real estate agency business.  However, there is a not so successful part of my story here too.  

I bust my a-- working 80+ hours a week, opening doors, showing properties, pushing paperwork, and... here's the kicker... I STILL HAVEN'T BOUGHT A PROPERTY.  Being self-employed and only three years of credit history makes it really hard to qualify for a mortgage.  2019 is finally going to be the year that I can afford one... because my last two years of tax returns show I've made enough money to get approved for a mortgage.  I have my sights set on a great four family that I'm hoping to have purchased by Spring but there's definitely a lesson to be learned here.  

For all of the aspiring young real estate entrepreneurs and investors out there reading this post, here's my words of wisdom for you... 

1. GET A JOB - (W2 income is sooooo much easier to qualify for a mortgage and make consistent income.  Plus, you might hate real estate as a full time job.  Hanging drywall and fixing toilets ain't so glamorous in real life)
2. SAVE MONEY - (yes you need cash in the bank to buy a property.  There are great programs out there that can get you low-money down or no-money down loans... but it still takes cash to operate a property and you need to have an "oh s---" fund in case something breaks)
3. DON'T RUSH -  (it takes time to build wealth in real estate.  You can't expect to go from reading a book to owning a big apartment complex in six months.  You need to spend time educating yourself, viewing properties, getting money lined up, analyzing deals, and THEN... MAYBE... pulling the trigger)

There is no "get-rich-quick" scheme in real estate.  You have to work hard and you have to spend a long time before you'll even be moderately successful in the industry.  If you want to get involved as a real estate wholesaler or agent or flipper... great!  There are some very successful people in those spaces that frequent these forums.  But you have to work twice as hard as anybody else in your market for YEARS if you want people to know your name, respect you, and want to do business with you.  Its not for everyone and there's no shame in buying one property every couple years passively while you're happily pursuing your passion in a completely different industry (and hopefully making lots of dough!)  And don't forget... if you don't have a W2 job... getting financing is really difficult.  I found that out the hard way :)

To all of my would-be, up-and-coming, or already wildly-successful, young real estate entrepreneurs... I wish you the best of luck and success in 2019!  And to all of those that are older and wiser than me... thank you for your continued support and guidance, and I hope your year is fabulous as well!