From Cleaning Other People's Houses to Owning Them

Toward the end of 2015, at 51 years old, I was divorced, renting a room in a shared house in England, cleaning other people's houses, and still unable to pay my bills. Now, I'm happily married to the love-of-my-life, living in America (where I'd always wanted to live), doing what I love for a living, and am about to get started on my first real estate deal.

It's a very long story, but I'm going to share just the basics, here. However, if you'd like any more detail or have any questions at all, please ask in the comments - I love answering questions!

My History in a Nutshell

I grew up in an environment of struggle. Financial struggle, emotional struggle, and work-is-more-important-than-anything-else struggle. As an adult, that pattern of struggle continued despite all my efforts to change myself and my life. It seemed no matter what I did, no matter how hard I worked, something would always happen to bring me back into the state of struggle.

Many years, a divorce, fibromyalgia, and a lot of what I called falling-down-and-getting-up-and-falling-down-again led me on a long, winding journey of self-development.

Finally, toward the end of 2015, I discovered something that would change everything. I had been researching how the brain works, and the brain-body connection, as well as subconscious beliefs, and I discovered a powerful link between childhood experiences and adult decisions. More on that in later posts.

During 2016, I was not only able to pay my bills, but had traveled to America (multiple cities) three times, Ireland, Spain (twice), and Greece (paying for my son and my sister to join me).

In February 2017, I met my husband, Steve, at a seminar in Oklahoma City. We moved to Peoria, Illinois (to be close to Steve's family), married in August 2017, and started our current mindset coaching business - working with the majority of our clients online through Zoom.

Unexpected Real Estate

Although we both wanted to eventually get into real estate, we were focused on building our new business. And, although it was doing well, like most new businesses, it was taking a lot more time and money to get started than we expected.

Neither of us had much spare money, and we were putting everything we had into building that new business.

Our plan was to wait until we’d built our business to a particular level, and then think about getting into real estate – starting with a house of our own as we’ve been renting since we got together and moved to Peoria, Illinois.

However, two months ago (around the end of July 2019), real estate came and found us - from a completely unexpected source!

We received a call, asking if we would be willing to accept an early inheritance of 12 rental units in the UK, due to the owner struggling with stress and illness. She needed someone she trusted to take over, and make all decisions, and just set up an income for her. We would be free to do what we wanted with the properties, including selling them and starting a portfolio here in the US. 

Two of these properties (two five-units) - I used to clean for £10 (about $13) an hour.

The Story So Far…

We flew to the UK (listening to Bigger Pockets podcasts in marathon on the way!) on August 20th 2019. In a 3-week, whirlwind visit (and with very little previous experience), and a VERY steep learning curve, we worked out figures, strategized, consulted investor friends, real estate agents, dealt with tenants, maintenance issues (including a broken boiler on our third morning there), rental management, signed power-of-attorney papers, did a massive family-home house-clearance, and put two of the properties (a 5-unit and a single-family) on the market – before flying home.

An eighteen-hour journey – and many more Bigger Pockets podcasts – and we were back in Peoria.

As soon as we got back, I joined Bigger Pockets, and started trying out the calculators.

Our plan was to move into a small multi-family, and “house-hack” – and then move forward from there.

We found a local Realtor we really like, who has been invaluable in helping us to get to know the areas of Peoria.

From 60+ BP calculations in the last 2 weeks, we’ve viewed 3 properties, and got excited and disappointed a few times. But, using our own mindset tools and techniques that we use with clients, we have been able to stay on-track and moving forward consistently, since we got back.

Next Chapter

A few days ago, a connection I made here in the Bigger Pockets Forums led to what looks like our first deal! We’re well aware that, despite our crash-course in real estate through Bigger Pockets podcasts, videos, and articles, what we don’t know still dramatically out-weighs what we do know. So, overcoming the natural doubts and lack of experience has been a key part of continuing to move forward.

Yesterday, having viewed the property we believe will be our first, at 3pm we sat in our living room and went back-and-forth on just how much about all of this we don't know – and (more importantly) how much there must be that we don't know we don't know! Finally, Steve said “I wish we knew someone with experience and who doesn’t have a stake in the deal one way or the other, to ask.”

To cut a long story short, I reached out to an experienced local investor (whom we’d not met before), and we offered to take him out for dinner if he would take a look at the deal for us, and make sure we weren’t missing anything.

We printed out the report from the Bigger Pockets calculator, and, three hours later, we were having dinner and wonderful, enlightening conversation with him. Not only did the investor answer our questions about the deal, he offered to do a walk-through with us to help us get an idea of the rehab costs! He has 20 years of experience in the maintenance and construction side of real estate as well as investing, so we know that this is a wonderful opportunity!

That’s where we’re up to, so far. I will update this blog, as we move forward, and will also share some of the mindset tips, tools, and techniques that we use and teach, for overcoming challenges and blocks along the way.

Please feel free to ask questions in the comments section below – I love answering questions!

And I hope to connect with you at some point along the journey here. 😊