Hello everyone. I have been listening to the podcasts for a year and a half and have been waiting for the right time to start my account on Bigger Pockets. While I was simply learning I knew if I started an account I would be one of those people that had an introduction and then no real activity for a long time. I have considered many times how in-depth to go with my introduction because I’m sure no one will be super interested in reading a small novel about someone they don’t know but also because I’m not the type of person that really enjoys opening up about certain aspects of my personal life, however because all aspects of my real estate life are so closely intertwined with my personal life I feel it would be necessary in order to be honest to include them all. We have yet to purchase our first property but we have taken over management of my father’s property and we are in the process of screening renters now.
I will try to keep this story as brief as I can. As long as I could remember I’ve had a looming fear of the day I would have to find a career. It was small when I was younger, but has always been there. As I was in college and career-time was just around the corner the anxiety and confusion became bigger and more unavoidable. Everyone seemed to have something they wanted to do or to be, or they just didn’t care and seemed to be content to do whatever as long as it gave them a paycheck. There was no career path that interested me and no simple paycheck that I found fulfilling. The thought of going to work every day for someone else and asking when I can take a vacation or permission to go to the doctor felt like a prison to me. I had been taught that if you don’t want to be a part of the system and work then you’re lazy. For many years I thought I was lazy, but was confused by the fact that I didn’t mind working hard for things I believed in, I just couldn’t find anything I believed in. I graduated college in 2005 and found it very, very difficult to find a job. Despite the fact that I tried as hard as I could, even going as far as hitting the streets and passing out resumes to every business I could find, I couldn’t find anything. I eventually got a job at a parts house. The emptiness of my life began to take a toll and I began to get in a bad place. No drugs or alcohol, but just mentally. I saw others spending the vast majority of their time doing things that I felt were pointless, and yet they seemed to be fulfilled to do things day in and day out they didn’t like as long as they had their weekends.
I met my wife in 2007 and we were married in 2010. I found a few different jobs, but most were low paying, physical labor. I was unemployed for a while and began driving and transporting cars for dealerships across the eastern United States. Though this felt a bit less oppressive, because of excessive taxation for being self employed it still wasn’t enough to even survive and I was dependent upon my wife’s income. I couldn’t provide for myself, let alone my family, and that was hard for me to deal with. I had two problems. I felt all means of income were absolutely unfulfilling and absolutely draining of any desire to continue and also, despite the fact that I was willing and ready to delve into this hopelessness because I thought that’s just what you were supposed to do, I couldn’t find a decent paying job that could even pay the rent and bills. I had attempted to pursue acting for several years and had to give it up for a few different reasons, one being that I was getting older and felt that I needed to once again find a way to provide for my family and felt it wasn’t worth the risk of not succeeding and leaving my family financially unsupported with only one income. I eventually got a job in a warehouse. Myself and another young man were the only employees in the warehouse and the boss was very emotional and tended to get angry at strange times and for almost any reason.
I was physically exhausted at the end of each day and at this point in my life I felt that this is how I was going to live out the remainder of my life. The prospect was absolutely soul-sucking to me. I value my family and I feel God provided me with a great wife, and I was thankful for these things, but we were both working and we only got to spend a couple hours at the end of the day with each other, and by that time we were both so tired and honestly, I was so depressed, it wasn’t true quality time. I began to slip into a deeper and deeper depression and it got to the point where my belief that my purpose in life is to serve God was not even enough to overcome my depression toward the feeling that all avenues I saw my myself in life were unfulfilling.
Many days of the week I began to go to the back of the warehouse and hide behind pallets and pray that God would change me, because at this point I believed that I felt this way because I was spoiled and simply didn’t really want to work, or that He would show me a path that wouldn’t leave me feeling like I did. It was at this time that my neighbor a few houses down, a very elderly man, bought a Ford Model A. Antique cars have always been a hobby of mine and so he asked me to help him get it running. One night I was riding with him to go winterize his Ford and we began talking about how unfulfilling it was to work where I did. He had been explaining his life and how he had invested in rental property over the years. He began to explain the benefits and what it had allowed him to do with his life. I found what he said to be very interesting but the prospect of owning rental property seemed as foreign to me as living on another planet. I soon found out that my neighbor across the street had lost his job about 15 years ago and now manages rental property for a living, which he actually bought from the first, older gentleman I mentioned. What they explained to me sounded amazing, but it seemed so foreign to me it still seemed like something that other people, particularly wealthy people, did. At this point in time, I had gotten into a very bad place, and by the time I got home from work it seemed almost overwhelming to attempt to search into real estate. As you all know, searching the internet to learn about how to invest in real estate leads to many scam-type websites. I attempted about three times to look into real estate and became quickly discouraged and quit, particularly after all the many, many times I had searched the internet for jobs and found nothing. It seems counterintuitive that if my current job was unfulfilling I should be all the more motivated to search for something new when I got home, but that’s just not how it worked for me. When I got home I wanted to try to wrap up in it like a blanket and not think about life or going back to work in any form. It was on about the third or fourth time I found Bigger Pockets.
I found jumping into the blogs to be a little overwhelming considering I knew absolute zero about real estate, however the easy and organized layout of the beginner’s guide was exactly what I needed. I know this probably sounds like a commercial, but it’s the absolute truth. I went through these beginner’s guides and it was in a format that seemed real, meaning that I didn’t feel they were trying to get me to purchase anything or convince me of some other ulterior motive. What I was hearing sounded very interesting. I downloaded the first podcast and began listening at work while I was working in the warehouse. What I feel is the hardest to explain is how hard it was to break out of a box that my thinking was in. To think that I really could do something that would allow me to be my own boss and allow me the freedom to actually run my own life, spend enough time with my family to actually get to know them and build a meaningful relationship by my own standards, was just amazing to me. I began to hear people talk in terms that made sense to me and that I had not heard anyone around me speak in. People that felt that the “rat-race” was unfulfilling, confining, oppressive. That no amount of money was worth giving 60-70-80 hours a week to make someone else rich. Along with the podcasts I began to listen to a few of the books that people recommended in the podcasts. I know what I am about to say is going to sound like a cliche to end all cliches, but I then listened to Rich Dad Poor Dad. I’m not going to say that I endorse absolutely everything the author says, but I can tell you that this book was revolutionary to me. When I listened to this book I literally began to cry at work. For the very first time in my life the dissonance between feeling like I wasn’t a lazy person and everyone thinking that I was lazy because work wasn’t fulfilling to me became understandable. What I had felt my entire life made sense. I had always had a fear of the ‘rat-race.” A deathly fear, and this is the hardest part for me to admit to anyone, let alone the public, but a suicidal fear. I had become so depressed at the thought of working in the rat-race my entire life that I had lost all desire to even do it. Even my wife and child were not enough, and it pains me to say that. Literally, the only thing that made me continue at times was the fact that God has commanded that it is only his choice and right to decide when our lives are to end. I would never openly discuss this, but I feel that it was this website that God used to give my life a path, and because of that, I have an obligation to tell my experience so that perhaps if only one other person reads it, it may resonate and be of some small amount of help or inspiration to them. Robert Kiyosaki began to explain concepts that made all of the feelings, which at the time I didn’t understand, fall into place. It was a very emotional time for me because I began to feel that I was, in fact, not lazy and not a failure. I had begun to believe something was wrong with me because I felt there was something wrong with the system I saw everyone living but no one else in my life seemed to see it at all, let alone have a real problem with it. I began to see a path for myself and my family. I began to see a way out of the emptiness that all those around me seemed to be a part of and oblivious to. It didn’t bother me that I couldn’t make it happen tomorrow, but the fact that there was a path at all was enough to give a goal, a purpose and restore confidence in myself.
I began to listen to the podcasts every day. I began to listen to books every day. It didn’t end the terrible work environment I was in, but it helped to see that the future wasn’t bleak. I eventually left that place and found tolerable employment elsewhere. I still struggled with the fact that, for me and my personality, working for a company feels like prison. I’m not saying that everyone should feel this way and that anyone is wrong for enjoying it if that is their desire, but I simply cannot understand that point of view. To me, there are many days I literally feel as though I am yoked and in a prison. I do not feel like a free man, but I know now my family now has a plan. I began to keep pen and paper on me at all time and I would make a list of questions as I was listening to the podcasts. Eventually, I had several pages of typed questions. My wife and I would then find individuals that managed numerous rental houses and we would explain what we wanted to do and they would agree to sit with us and answer our questions, which we would both write the answers to on our separate copies. We would then compile our answers later just in case one of us caught something the other missed. Reading the forum, podcasts, books and personal interviews were ways I began to educate myself over the next year and a half. I will say that I find it necessary to listen to the podcasts not only to educate myself, but to also maintain motivation. Listening to the stories of others that are near my age and have made real estate work despite having limited knowledge in the beginning gives me the continued motivation to believe that I can make this happen. I find the podcasts to be like motivational fuel and if I go two or three weeks without listening I begin to feel overwhelmed and lose focus. I begin to feel like this idea is too big and scary for me and there is no way I can break out of my current situation, but after listening to a podcast or two I suddenly feel like I can and will make this happen. Now that we have taken steps to begin actively pursuing our goals and our ideas have begun to become a reality, it begins to feel less and less like a fantasy.
I took over the management of my father’s rental property, which was a house that my grandparent had lived in. If you made a list of all the things not to do with rental property they would have gone down and list and done each of those things and then some. After finally evicting the non-paying, live-in dead-beat I began the process of getting the house in order. I had a local contractor handle the mostly-interior renovation. It took four-trailer loads to haul off all of the things the dead-beat live-in left behind. There weren’t a few spots of pet urine, the entire house was pet urine, and more. Holes in doors, fridges, yes plural, full of rotten food. Enough empty beer cans to support the next war. There was an empty fifty gallon trash can full of cement that took more than two men to move. The guy that was supposed to have the entire house turn-key ready to rent didn’t exactly get the house to that specification. My father and I spent between 60-100 hours on top of what was supposed to be a complete renovation to get the house rentable. For example, the toilets weren’t bolted down, the “new” used oven was as dirty as an oven can be, the sinks were missing parts, there was mold in the showers and the list goes on and on. I would tackle projects after work and my father, who is retired, would handle projects on my list when he was able. The information I’ve learned was priceless in knowing what types of materials to use and knowing how not to over-renovate for a rental versus a home we would be building for ourselves. We definitely got ripped off with the renovation, but it’s a learning experience. We are currently in the process of screening tenants. I am a bit nervous because this is our first round and I know we will learn a lot but no doubt make mistakes. It also feels very awesome to begin gaining real world experience.
We also have been saving for a down payment for over a year and looking into several duplexes. We found an acquaintance that will be selling one and we have been actively saving money for an emergency fund to accompany our down payment. Saving for properties is exponential, and this first one is taking a very long time, especially with a second child and doctor bills and general life happening. We are now trying to weigh the option of using our money for a down payment on a duplex or look into a foreclosure flip to raise capitol for a down payment. My experience restoring antique automobiles translates well to being able to learn and handle the work involved in fixing a home. The high risk, high reward is an interesting option that we are trying to learn more about. I also, due to the advice from the podcasts, began establishing a relationship with a lender at a local bank. She was very impressed with what we are trying to do and put me in contact with another individual with similar goals. I called him and we spoke on the phone for almost 30 minutes and I hope to be able to learn a lot from him about our specific market.
Over the months, I have gone over in my mind many times about how to write all of this. I often times focus on certain parts more than others and include and leave out other parts. Sometimes I focus too much on my world views and other times I don’t go into them enough. I am afraid that there are so many angles to fully explain everything that no matter how hard I try I cannot sum up everything without leaving some strings untied, but I hope this will suffice. I am sure no matter when I write this or how hard I try I will always think of something later I wish I had added or explained better, but even with a simple introduction, there comes a time when you just have to dive in and do it, so this is mine. When I say buy and hold is freedom, I truly mean it.
