My partner, @Account Closed and I have been on an incredible journey for the last 12 months! We started our real estate investing business about a year ago, with the goal of retiring from our W-2 jobs within 3 years. We set a goal that both scared and inspired us. We then had to figure out how to get started...

We live in Seattle, WA. After extensive research we liked the opportunities we were finding in Cleveland, OH. So we had a target market, but with everything happening in the world it seemed daunting to get started, and there were many excuses and limiting beliefs that almost got in the way...

With the ongoing pandemic, how could we get to our target market to meet people and make deals happen?

Retire in 3 years?! We don't have that kind of cash on hand?

How are we going to find these deals?

We both have full time W-2 jobs, we do not have the time to pursue such a crazy goal.

Thankfully friends helped keep us accountable. When we listed these excuses, our friends said "Oh you must not want it that badly...." OK! That lit a fire for us to just get started! Here's what we did:

We decided to move to Cleveland for 6 months to allow us to really learn the market, meet people and make deals happen. We can both work remotely, so we really wanted to take advantage of this time to make our dream happen.

We started small, by acquiring several single family and small multi-family properties.
We set a stretch goal to own 50 units by the end of 2021.
We self managed everything at first, which meant nights and weekends hustling to fix toilets and turn units. We learned a lot of valuable lessons doing this, one being that this was not a good use of our time!
We knew if we wanted to scale to 50 units we needed to after bigger deals. And so we started networking and meeting as many people as we could in the space, learning whatever we could from them.
We listened to audiobooks and podcasts non-stop (still do!)
We worked on our mindset, identifying and crushing limiting beliefs
We joined a mastermind group! This has made all the difference for us. Being surrounded by like-minded people, doing the kinds of deals we wanted to do has been such an incredible learning experience. We have constant accountability with this team and our mentors and we are inspired every day by each other's successes. We knew that joining a mastermind was an investment in ourselves that would have a tremendous ROI.

Through all of this hard work, education, and networking, we are so thrilled to say that last month we became GPs in a 151 unit deal in Columbus, OH. We absolutely blew our 50 unit goal out of the water. We were given the opportunity to join this deal because of the relationships we built in the mastermind, our hard work, dedication and our ability to bring value to the partnership. We have learned that multifamily is truly a team sport and we are really grateful for the opportunity to partner on this deal.

We are also really excited that the connections we've made have led us to become GPs in a 32 unit deal in South Carolina which just closed last week!

This is just the beginning and it's truly incredible to stand here a year later and look at all that we have accomplished.

Cheers to all who helped us along the way! (looking at you @Yosef Lee!)

What's next for us? We are working with partners on several upcoming deals. We are always looking to connect with active and passive investors who are passionate about real estate and making financial independence a reality.

Let's Make It Happen!

Javier & Amanda