@Morgan M. You may have opened the floodgates with asking me for some stories as I am 80 years old and have lots of stories.
I retired at 64 after a wonderful career as an engineer. I lived in Socal and owned a house there. When I retired I moved to a retirement community in Arkansas. I urge anyone to try a retirement community when they retire. My first attempt at retirement was to volunteer. I spent about 10 years volunteering as a Red Cross disaster relief volunteer and about 5 years as a CASA volunteer. They were wonderful experiences but just did not fulfill my life. About 4 years ago I sold my house in Socal and made a criminal profit from appreciation.
My real estate interest was always bubbling in the background. During my working years I did a few flips with partners and one rental. With $800k now floating around I decided to try lending. I needed to network so went to a REIA meeting in Little Rock. I was hooked. Here was a room full of people who wanted to talk real estate. My retirement friends could care less about the topic. I started a local meet up and found local investors. I have found lending gets me excited in the morning just as my engineerings job did.
The only experience I will want to share now is my first failures. I found a man who could find the deals. I let him get into me for 7 loans. For a year things went well. Then he said he could not continue the payments . He gave me one of the properties and continued paying on the others. This property was a 5 unit apartment building in a rural town in AR. He had let the place fall apart so there was major rehab. I found I loved it. There is something wonderful about providing shelter for people in a small town. I had to foreclose on the others but have rehabbed and sold most of them.
One thing I sort of laugh at myself for. I read all kinds of real estate and business book. I even enjoy a "wellness" book now and again. The most recent book I read was "The 4 Hour Work Week". One of the tips asks one to define their goals for the next year, 5 years, etc. My only goal is to be alive to continue this wonderful fun time in my life.
Now aren't you sorry you asked?
