I got clued into real estate in 2005. My father-in-law asked if I'd be willing to renovate and manage the 10-unit and 7-unit apartment buildings he and my mother-in-law had owned since the early 80s. I agreed. What I did not know was my father-in-law was a micromanager and exceptionally cheap. I'm handy, so I was tasked with doing the renovations myself. But these buildings needed EVERYTHING. I finally convinced my FIL he was losing a fortune having me do this work for "free". So I played general contractor for a few months on everything I could not handle myself. This still left me busting ***, especially just before someone was moving in. There were days I'd go straight from my day job to the apartments, then work there until the next morning and go straight back to work. I also had twin infant girls at home at the time. It was all pretty rough. But I got everything done, got all the units rented (my FIL was a slumlord and vacancy was like 70% when I started), and managed the properties while working my day job. Seeing how much money my in-laws were making in their sleep made me realize pretty fast I was in the wrong business.
But I live in Silicon Valley and my mindset was "buy and hold", passive income. In my mind nothing near me penciled out as a rental and I did not have the knowledge or funds to make it work, nor the risk tolerance or mindset to flip locally. Even back then everything seemed insanely expensive. So I started reading books, reading online (came across BP), and went to REIA meetings. I finally ended up buying a couple turnkey properties in Dallas-Fort Worth in 2011. I quickly decided I didn't need the middle-man and built a team in DFW and started collecting single family buy and hold properties. I replicated this in the Atlanta Metro Area. My wife and I had maybe 8 doors when I got laid off in 2012. I decided I'd never work for someone again and went full time in real estate. Within a year of being laid off I collected 10 more doors for almost no money out of pocket using creative financing. At the same time I started selling properties to retail buyers and as turn key investments to Bay Area people I knew (friends, former co-workers).
By 2013, flipping houses 2500 miles away had become more trouble than it was worth. That same year I lost like $250k in GA by being ripped off by my contractor and an ill-chosen business partner. I started flipping houses in the Bay area as by now I had the knowledge, connections, and confidence to think, "It's the same game here as out there. Just gotta add another '0' to everything." I also started a Meetup that helped quickly build my network and it grew to over 3100 members in 5 years. In 2014 I made back the $250k I'd lost, and more. For each of the past 3 years I've made 7-figures flipping houses and will hit that again by this summer. For the past 3 years I've taken all money we don't need to live on, have fun with, or keep the business wheels greased, and put it into various passive investments. I am now making more in passive income than I made at my day job. And since I'm in the Bay Area and the numbers are so big (and have put in the heavy lifting) I really only have to work a few hours a week flipping houses.
So there ya go @Melanie Kent .
