Why Women with Families Should Invest In Real Estate

Real estate investing can allow women to “have their cake and eat it too.” I often hear about women who feel as though they have to choose between a thriving career and their family. Other times, I hear new mothers express serious and deep sadness because they have to return to work but would rather stay home and raise their children. It’s an unfortunate circumstance of this amazing modern world that so many women feel they have to choose one or the other. But do they? Is there a career path that allows you the flexibility to be a full time mother and have a successful career? I happen to think so and I found it in real estate.

I knew at a young age that I wanted to have children and that I wanted to be a stay at home mom or at least have the flexibility to work from home and raise my children. By the time I was 22 I had read multiple books on personal finance, which lead me to the world of real estate investing. It was then that I started house hunting on a very tight budget. I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for, single family, duplex, fixer upper, but I did know I wanted to own real estate and have others pay down my mortgage for me. I had read it was a great vehicle to build wealth. Having grown up in a poor county in Western New York on a farm where both of my parents worked full time in addition to farming and still struggled living paycheck to paycheck I was bound and determined to find wealth and it seemed as though real estate could get me there.

The Property That Started It All

After 2 years of searching my husband and I found a split level ranch where we immediately saw potential to easily convert the basement of the house into a 3 bedroom apartment. We were making a combined $55,000 per year and had about $5,000 in savings. Since I had spent countless hours learning about real estate investing and how to finance purchases with little to no money I had learned our best option would be an FHA loan. The FHA loan program was perfect for us because it only required 3.5% down and we could use up to 6% of the purchase price ($155,000) as seller concessions to apply towards our closing costs. This meant $8,000 we didn’t have to come up with to bring to the closing table. With just a little less than $6,000 invested we were officially homeowners! We immediately installed a wall to separate the two apartments and built a small kitchen in the basement to make it a functioning and compliant 3 bedroom 1 bath apartment. We had hopes that this apartment would pay some of our mortgage but it did much more. Within a year of purchasing the house our apartment was paying for the entire mortgage, taxes and utilities. We were living mortgage free. We used this as an opportunity to continue to save to purchase another property. While we were saving for the next property we found out we were expecting our first child. At this point my husband had transitioned into a much better job and with quite a bit of fear but faith we would make it I quit my job to raise our daughter and grow our investment portfolio. Six months after our daughter was born we purchased our next property, a duplex, with just $10,000 using a seller note. With two properties under our belt and quite a bit of forced equity in the first property we bought we were able to use a Home Equity Loan to fund a down payment and build a third duplex in which we moved our, still growing, family of 4 into. The downstairs apartment of our new duplex again completely paid our mortgage and taxes and allowed us to still live mortgage free and now we were collecting rent and cash flowing on 2 duplexes. Our portfolio has continued to grow and we now have 3 children that I’ve had the pleasure to raise. Every morning I wake up and leisurely drink my coffee while my kids play. Now that two are in school, we still wake up and have mostly relaxing mornings before they head off to school. I’ve been able to balance tenants, move ins and move outs, flipping apartments and everything in between on my terms all while being a full time mother.  I’ve also experienced the joys of setting goals and attaining them. I truly feel like real estate investing has given me the ability to experience both a successful and satisfying career while also being an involved full time mom, both of which have been important to me.

If women are looking for a career where they can experience growth, satisfaction and smash goals but also have flexibility and full control over their schedules then look no further. Real estate investing has changed my families life and I encourage everyone I meet to get started. I was hopeful that we would experience some financial freedom with real estate investing but I never expected that it would alter our lives to the extent that it has.