Jumping Into Real Estate

[Caden Rouiller]

Hello everyone I hope you can bear with me I am a numbers guy and not much of a writer haha. I am excited to write my first post about my real estate story. I am twenty-two years old and I am graduating college from Chico State this May (2021). I am graduating with a degree in civil engineering and took a job in Medford, OR as a project engineer for an awesome construction company. That job starts May 31st and I am excited to dive into the real world. 

My girlfriend and I were having a very hard time finding a place to rent, since Medford recently had 3,000 homes burn down, and there was a minimum of six people on each waitlist. We finally stumbled across a great place to rent and started going through the process and ended up getting rejected. Thirty minutes before we got the call with the news, that we were not accepted, I opened up my journal that starts with a quote. The quote read "remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck" and I wrote a couple exclamation marks after it because it really resonated with me. The call came and I was not even phased since I had just read that quote. I started writing the quote on post its and putting them everywhere in the house to keep mine and my girlfriends mindset positive, since we now had no place to live and two months to figure it out. I took the timing of the quote and the rejection from the complex as a sign that we were going to buy a house.

I have been really into real estate for the past few years and have always wanted to buy my first home right after I graduate because I do not like paying rent and having that money disappear. However, I never thought I would be buying a home before I graduated. Homes were staying on the market for three or four days and going above their asking price and we knew we had to be aggressive. I got pre-approved and then got in contact with a realtor in Medford and schedule a visit. We drove up and started looking around at houses and had a couple meetings with her. In just three days we found a house that we love and was well within our budget and we put in an offer. The offer was accepted and we are moving into our new home in the middle of May and can't wait to start making improvements.

So many times on the podcast I have heard that buying your first home is one of the most important steps in real estate investing. I am thankful I was in a position to buy a home and can't wait to continuing to expand my portfolio.