A friend of mine once told me that when you set out on a journey to accomplish something, you won’t be able to see how everything worked together until you reach your destination. You can’t connect the dots while you’re moving forward. When I think about how I purchased my first rental property, that statement comes to mind. There was no way I could have connected the dots from the beginning. Things were set in motion for that day roughly seven years before I actually purchased the property. At the time, I was selling water systems door to door and purchasing property was the furthest thing on my mind. I was having a hard time trying to make enough money to cover my living expenses and keep the business afloat. Eventually, the business folded and I was without a job. And I was left with bad credit and very little money.

At first, I tried to avoid phone calls from customers who had purchased water systems from the company because I was embarrassed. But there was one guy that kept calling; he was persistent, to say the least. Eventually, I answered his call and told him that we’d gone out of business. I told him that I felt bad that he invested in the water system. Since the company was now closed there would be no one to service his system. I told him that I would help him as best as I could.

Surprisingly, he was not upset with me and said that he would be grateful for any assistance that I could provide. After servicing his system a few times, he took a liking towards me and just wanted my company from time to time. During one of those visits, I really opened up to him and told him how the company went under and how it left me in bad shape financially and how I was struggling to get back on my feet. I would stop by his house frequently just to talk while I was looking for work opportunities. Once I found a job, the visits were not as frequent but I kept in touch with him. He always wanted to hear about the progress I was making and would always offer words of encouragement. I shared with him each step I was making financially to get back on track.

First, I found a new job. Then I paid back all the money friends had loaned me. Next, I paid off my credit card debt that had gone into collections. Once I became financially stable, I would share with him the things I was learning from books like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and I would tell him my aspirations for owning a business one day. He would say to me that one day I would be a millionaire. When I laughed at that notion, he said that he wasn’t joking and that he was serious. He always expressed a belief in me and always said to let him know of any business venture I wanted to pursue because he wanted to be a part of it. Every time I would leave, he would express how much he enjoyed my company and that I was always welcome, day or night, no matter the time.

I remember getting off of work from a late shift and riding by his house at 1:00 am and I thought to myself, I should call his bluff. I decided not to because I figured his wife would not find that funny. A couple of days later, his wife called me and told me that he had passed earlier in the week. I didn’t know it at the time, but when I rode by his house that night, my friend Mr. Huff had already passed. Then I thought about the last time I went to go see him. He had recently had a mild heart attack but he said that he was feeling much better and was in good spirits. He talked about eating better and getting healthy enough to walk around the block to get some exercise. When I was leaving on this particular visit and saying goodbye, he told me I was like a son to him and that he wished he had something to give me to help me start some type of business. He told me he loved me and that he really appreciated me stopping by to check on him. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that would be his final good bye to me.

About a year after he passed, I left my job and went back to school to complete my degree. I decided to major in finance with a concentration in real estate. I chose that major because I wanted to learn as much about real estate as I could; several self-help books convinced me that real estate was the best way to build wealth for the average person. I figured just having a degree would help me get a better job and learning all I could about real estate would benefit my long-term goal of building wealth. I didn’t have enough knowledge to start investing in real estate at that time, so my plan was to do some real-life case studies while I was in school. One of the properties that I was going to monitor was the property that belonged to Mr. Huff.

Maybe a year or so after he passed, the property was in foreclosure. I remembered from the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad that sometimes good real estate deals come from unfortunate circumstances like job losses, divorce, or death. It seemed like one of those scenarios from the book was unfolding with his property. After it was foreclosed, the bank listed the property for sale for somewhere around $80,000. My plan was to watch and see what happened to the property and use it as a learning experience once I started my real estate career. It sat for over a year and the price dropped to around $60,000 but still, no buyer. While finishing up school and searching for job opportunities, I lost track of what was going on with the property.

Less than two weeks after I graduated, I started my new job as a mortgage loan originator. I was excited because I had finished school and found a job in my field of study. This was a commission-based job but the company started me off with a small salary to help me get on my feet since I had no prior experience. This was a great opportunity, but there was one problem. My job was to bring in new business which meant existing customers seeking to refinance their mortgage loan would not count towards my target numbers. This was in 2009 during the Great Recession and there was not a lot of home purchases at that time. I was starting to feel the pressure from my manager, and I could sense that they were about to fire me because my numbers were not up to par.

From personal development books I read in the past, I knew that a ‘can do’ attitude was needed during times like this and I strongly believed in the old adage ‘if there is a will, there is a way.’ My plan was to first figure out how many homes sold in that area the previous month just to get a feel for how much potential business was out there and then go to every real estate office in town and talk with every agent I could. I did a Google search for “how many homes were purchased in Tuscaloosa in January 2010.” For some reason, a list of properties for sale in the area came up and a picture of my old friend Mr. Huff’s house came up and it was listed at $42,000. I could not believe that the price of the house had dropped so low. I called a real estate agent that I met while I was out visiting local real estate offices trying to drum up business and asked him to go look at the house with me. We were unable to get in the house and the phone number on the sign in the yard was disconnected. I researched the property to find out what bank owned the property and saw that a company named Taylor, Bean, and Whittaker owned the property. When I looked up the company in a Google search, I discovered it was going out of business. From another article I learned that another bank had purchased a group of their properties for thirty cents on the dollar. It seemed like all the stars were aligning for me to get the property at an excellent deal. With the assistance of the real estate agent, I submitted a low ball offer of $26,000. They countered with $27,000 and I accepted the offer and got the house under contract. This was similar to some of the stories I read about in real estate books and I could hardly believe I was about to pull this off. The last hurdle was getting approved for a mortgage which normally would not have been a problem. I had great credit and the reserves needed to purchase the property, but I needed to show income from a job. In the middle of the mortgage application process, I lost my job as a mortgage loan originator; how ironic is that. Fortunately, a previous employer called me within two weeks of losing that job and I was back working within a month. I closed on the property two weeks after I started my new job. There was enough equity in the property that I was able to get a loan with no money down and $20,000 to put towards rehabbing the property.

When tracing back the steps that it took for me to purchase my first rental property, I realized that those dots were connected over a period of seven years. There was no way for me to see or predict those steps looking forward. Seeing how everything unfolded, this story has and will always serve as a personal reminder of why it is important to always do my best, keep a positive attitude, and have personal integrity. You never know how the next dot will connect you to your goals.