After writing this, I now realize it's pretty long, so I put the main focus and details of the deal in bold and the rest of the fluff in italics.
Prior to successfully completing my first real estate deal, one of the things I found to be most frustrating from the other side of the fence is that I’d click on one of those encouraging “How I turned $5,000 into $1,000,000” type articles – often titled in a similar “click bait” manner as mine is I suppose – and always ended up actually feeling more discouraged as a result because the successes involved in such articles relied almost entirely on very specific occurrences and ample luck. Sure, if you’ve been in real estate long enough, you’ll eventually hit that deal where all the stars align in a splendid constellation of gigantic profits; however, for the beginners who are just up to bat for the first time so to speak, hitting one out of the park shouldn’t be expected and is on par with winning the lottery.
So the objective of this write up is not to focus on “being in the right place at the right time”, nor is it even necessarily about the specifics of my particular deal itself, but rather my objective is to show how I, as just some average Joe, was capable of making my first deal with a bit of sacrifice and how the power of real estate turned what was initially a money burning asset of a car into a cash producing asset.
Often, the question most beginners have, especially individuals who are relatively young like myself (26), is where do I even get the money. And the answer is…bah bah bah bum…look around you! So often, individuals think that the money they need for real estate investments has to be built through slow and time consuming cash savings. However, even the most average of families are often surrounded by assets that they've been putting money into for years that are more than capable of being sold for fast cash to propel us into real estate, albeit perhaps requiring us to down size...a lot. I know a lot of times we get hyped up over hearing about “no money down deals” where we can invest in real estate without really giving anything up, and as amazing as those deals are, the reality is for most beginners who don’t want to wait several years to save up the necessary funds or don't want to dabble in wholesaling, the answer is liquidating unnecessary or excessive assets.
For me, the money to invest in real estate was sitting covered in my garage, its wheels roughly 3” off the ground and supported by 4 jack stands – and it had been sitting there that way since the last October when I returned home from one last cruise through the crisp fall air. It was March 2014 that I had opened up my garage door and stood staring at the “COBRA” lettering peeking out under the car cover. As of that month, I had owned the car almost exactly 6 years, and over the course of those 6 years I had only driven the convertible maybe 5-6000 miles.
You see, I wasn’t just a Ford Mustang hobbyist. I was an enthusiast – no, no…I was a fanatic! Some people are addicted to gambling and some people to drugs or alcohol; I was addicted to automotive performance. And so almost immediately after graduating college and launching myself into a very modest entry level career, I decided I was going to buy a Ford Mustang Cobra and turn it into one of the “sickest” street cars around…something worthy of being placed on the glossy pages of a magazine.
Roughly $17,000 later – mostly financed – I was sitting behind the wheel of my very own slice of raw, American muscle. And over the course of those years, alongside making $350 monthly payments on a car I only drove on weekends 6 months out of the year, I had slowly poured obscene amounts of money into the vehicle in an effort to reach my goal of it being one of the fastest street cars in the area. Excluding normal maintenance, I estimate based upon receipts that I easily spent over $20,000 on performance work & parts. Carbon fiber body panels, superchargers, headers and exhaust components, aftermarket wheels, performance pistons and rods, machine work, etc – these parts are not cheap, and the extensive modifications left my car absolutely useless during installations for long periods of time.
In total, after spending $17,000 to buy the car that I eventually owned free and clear (excluding interest) and spending an additional $20,000 in performance and other upgrades to end up with a reliable 600hp beast on the streets, I was essentially going to realize a loss of $22,000 if I was able to sell the car for $15,000 - the current blue book value the day I stood in the garage pondering if I was ready to take the leap and sign it over to a buyer. You see, I could have plated the car in 32 karat gold leaf and unless I was able to find a buyer who was specifically interested in paying a premium to own a gold leaf covered Mustang, blue book value is what it is, and no one was going to pay me upwards of $40,000 for a 2001 model year car they could just as easily buy with similar upgrades elsewhere for less than half that amount.
Unfortunately, I had already bought the car and I had already flushed all that money down the drain – my only gain on investment being brief jolts of adrenaline and incrementally smaller quarter mile times. Now, I had a wife, child and other numerous financial responsibilities that meant this car was the only thing between me and investing in real estate for a very long time.
But, with a few quick scribbles of a signature on the title, I had an additional $15,000 in my checking account and an empty space in my garage. Three weeks later I had applied $10,000 toward closing on my first investment property, a house I purchased for $36,000 and currently rent out for $625 a month. 'PITI' is around $350 a month, so excluding additional expenses, it is cash flowing about $275 a month beyond the principal payments.
Based upon an appraisal of $50,000 and subtracting the principal I owe the bank of $27,500, this leaves $22,500 in equity. Plus, I still had an additional $5,000 remaining from the sell of the car I rolled into paying off all my credit card debt and invested in the stock market. Basically, I went from selling an asset – my Mustang – that ended up in my opinion having a realized loss of $22,000 considering I optionally chose to put those funds into the car without any hope of getting anything financially out of it and used the funds to purchase assets that not only increased my net worth by $27,500 but also provides consistent, passive income for years to come.
Now, sure you can look at that and focus specifically on the numbers, or maybe you can focus on the fact that it required some leverage, or maybe you look at that and still think it’s the result of being at the right place at the right time…but that’s really not the point!
The point is, so often we ask ourselves how we can come up with the money to invest when the money exists right in front of us – it’s just tied up into assets that have been purchased over several years. Certainly, selling something you admire greatly or have spent years paying off can be a struggling sacrifice, but failing to make those sacrifices is really what separates us from achieving our true dreams. Many times I’ll talk with young individuals who can’t fathom how they could come up with the money to buy a second home for investment purposes and I’ll suggest they sell their brand new vehicles whether they’re paid off or not and they’ll scoff at the idea of generating the cash by using that equity. They always have some justification for why they need the car they have or why they can't justify selling something that's really just a money pit. I’ve got plenty of friends who have finally paid off their cars and they easily have a $25,000 vehicle just depreciating and deteriorating away that they could sell, turn around and buy a decent $10,000 car, and still have $15,000 left over – a position that’s better off than I was on my first deal. In fact, often “fast cash” gets construed to be expensive, but if you’re receiving “fast cash” through the sell of an item that’s constantly and forever losing value, it’s more cost effective the sooner you sell it for fair market value.
People get mesmerized by the big numbers involved in real estate and how unattainable those numbers seem, but then fail to put into perspective what percentage of our luxury belongings and expenses truly are in comparison and what could have happened if we designated those funds into investments instead of material possessions.
- The $2000 TV hanging on the wall…that’s 4% of a $50,000 property that around my town in central Iowa will buy a basic, move in ready, two bedroom bungalow.
- A $4000 credit card balance someone racked up from the past six months of excessive shopping and entertainment…a whopping 8% of a $50,000 home.
- That $6,000 family vacation to Disney World is a staggering 12% of a $50,000 property.
- The $12,000 boat sitting in the neighbor’s garage he only takes out 4 times each summer, it is basically a 24% down payment for a mortgage on a $50,000 rental property.
Heck, even the PS4 that I just had to have for some late night Call of Duty action and spent probably $700 on including a couple games and accessories is just a hair under 2% of the total $36,000 purchase price of the investment home I bought – and I actually find that sort of sickeningly interesting if you really put that into perspective. In fact, had I put that money into my investment savings, I’d have an additional 2 month’s worth of PITI payments to survive on in case of vacancies and that's pretty significant. Of course, it should be noted that I’m not implying that it is healthy to remove every luxury from our lives, rather I just think it can be very eye opening when even a normal, middle class family closely examines what they spend each year on luxuries in comparison to the capital required for a real estate deal and for the vast majority of middle class families, their vehicles make up a significant chunk of excessive luxury that can be down sized – unfortunately, we often exaggerate those luxuries as necessities. For me, it was “I have to keep this Mustang because I own it free and clear, so it’s not really worth selling it since it’s my hobby and passion”. It was almost as though it was harder to sell since I owned it free and clear because at that point it didn’t really feel like it was a burden any more since I didn’t owe the bank anything, yet it really still was because it was hindering my success at real estate.
I mean, I personally know people who spend $10,000 every year for flights, lodging, car rentals, and entertainment on a wild, extravagant vacation with their kids. I’m over here thinking in 10 years time that family could have had $100,000 in cash to apply toward a vacation property somewhere their family, grand children, great grand children, etc could enjoy for the rest of their lives while profiting as a vacation rental property on the side.
I think the moral of the story is pretty obvious, but I’ll go ahead and reiterate. For beginners, we often tend to put the cart before the horse. We see other investors – usually who have been in the business for a while – come across that once in a life time investment and we use that as encouragement to find properties that conveniently fit into our current financial situation…or lack there of. We don’t want to give up the things in our lives we have already worked so hard to get and want to conveniently find ways to “have our cake and eat it to”. The fact of the matter is that every batter will have the opportunity to hit a home run if they have enough swings at the plate. But to get those swings, more than likely, you need some working capital, and to get that working capital, you have to figure out what you can do in your own life to make it a reality and it’s probably going to take a sacrifice – for me it was selling a beloved sports car and coming to the realization that despite the joy that the car had provided, it was not fulfilling my long term needs and goals.
And not to put myself on a pedestal by any means, but I think that our society could really learn a lot about giving up temporary gratification to reach long term gratification. It was extremely freeing for myself when I finally embraced that.
