Thankful for everything BiggerPockets

[Brie Schmidt]

With the upcoming holiday I was reflecting on what I am thankful for. As tomorrow is my 4 year BP anniversary I looked up this post from last year and reflected on what an amazing journey it has been.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/223/topics/381564-omg-i-cant-believe-it-has-been-three-years-since-i-found-bp

Since 2014 I have been involved in 59 purchases of 2-4 units in Chicago and Milwaukee. That is over $200k a month in gross rental income!! WOW!

My personal portfolio, which I started a little over 6 years ago, now has over 30 properties and 90+ units. It is a constant and evolving learning process that I would not have been able to do without BP.

This year I spoke in Denver at @Joe Fairless' Best Ever Conference, which is an amazing event for anyone looking to do multi-family syndication or raise capital. It would have been even more awesome if I didn’t tear my ACL skiing with a bunch of other speakers after the event.

I also spoke for the third time at @J. Martin's San Francisco Real Estate Networking Summit, which is full of really smart people collaborating and networking to elevate each other and their businesses. Last year I was on crutches and a scooter from a broken foot (I was really worried about the trend that was starting) but this year I was walking on my own!

Next year I will be speaking at 's Mid Atlantic Summit and am really looking forward to meeting some of my East Coast “virtual” BP friends in person at the event.

I am also in the midst of planning a summit/conference event for Chicago likely in spring/fall 2018. Our meetup group has hundreds of BP members that collaborate and help each other every month, so I am super excited to expand on that and get more people involved with partnering, learning from each other, and helping all of our businesses grow. 

Speaking of growing businesses… I officially started Second City Real Estate which is an expansion of the brokerage company I started in 2014. We continue to work with Chicago investors to acquire 2-4 units for flipping or buy and hold and I am in the top 10% of agents in the Chicagoland area.  @Charlie Shields joined the brokerage this year, he bought a 3 unit with me last summer and came on board as an agent. His hands-on experience starting his own portfolio has been vital as we team up to educate local investors looking to do the same.

I continue to struggle with time management but have made huge strides this year to focus my time on the things that are most important and outsource the rest. In fact it was listening to J Scott speak in San Francisco that got me re-focused on the systems and processes in all my businesses. I utilize the “getting things done” method which has been great for the last few years, but I still struggle with time management. I have improved a lot over last year but the goal is to focus on it still in 2018.

I will always and forever be thankful for BP, the community, friends, and partners and how much my business and life changed since becoming a member of the community. Thanks!