When I was 18 I decided real estate was the vehicle to wealth I would dedicate all my time into mastering. Over the next 4 years I took baby step after baby step with no pay day in RE knowing, I was building my trampoline so that one day I could launch! The baby steps included, getting a credit card, side hustles in college, looking for high paying internships, and educating myself with the podcasts. I was nearing graduation and knew this career I'm beginning is day one of getting ready to put all my financial literacy and real estate aspirations into play. I negotiated a good starting salary for my first job as a project engineer in construction. I lived at home to have a saving rate of 90%! I was able to minimize my expenses to a point where I knew my first opportunity was coming way sooner than I expected. 3 months later I put all my cash together (about 20k) from years of saving 8k and 3 months saving basically every dollar at work making up the other 12k. I was able to owner finance a half duplex with very good terms equivalent to what I would receive from a bank directly. I knew these terms would allow me to save and buy my second property much quicker as I would still qualify for FHA or 5% conventional. That half duplex makes over a 30% cash on cash return annually with what I believe to be below market rents. I was able to save as aggressively as I had been plus cash flow from the duplex for 6 months after the purchase. I was very happy with my progress and was thinking "best case scenario I am able to buy another unit in about a year" This led me to think "small" in relative terms. I continued to live at home and save 100% of my earned income and live solely off my cash flow from the half duplex. I realized I was able to save about 4500$ a month. So in 5-6 short months I knew I had enough saved to be able to buy a decent home in the Dallas area. I decided one day at work to call up a lender as I've never even tried to get pre approved, come to find out I would have been delaying my opportunity's for no reason. I assumed I would get rejected but to my surprise I was approved for about 340,000$
I knew I had to start shopping, I was risking putting 100% of everything I have to my name into a deal because I had put in the hours of research and trusted my beliefs. I knew I wanted to house hack and move out of my parents and live closer to work. I began making offers on duplexes and soon found out in this market my competition was cash offers 30-40k over asking. Here I am using FHA with not a chance of paying that much over. I switched to 5% conventional as I think it helped my chances of being competitive. I began looking at single family as multi family was just too expensive and not getting good returns. I stumbled across a single family house with a mother in law suite with outdoor entrance, kitchen, bathroom only 10 minutes after being listed on Zillow. In my eyes this was my exact solution. I was buying straight off the MLS so I knew investors might night catch this one as quickly as a normal duplex. I ran the numbers
as I had done hundreds of times over the years at this point, my preparation let to confidence when it was finally happening. I ran the numbers and realized this house would cash flow almost 40%! I instantly made and offer 10k over with not a worry in my heart.
I’m typing this 2 months after buying this deal, living absolutely for free in the apartment. 22 years old with 3 units and over half a million dollars worth of real estate under control. I write this to hopefully inspire some 18 year old reading this who is dreaming big but is in their “building the trampoline” phase. Your time is coming, it may sneak up on you
I am brand new here, i have never spoken to another young investor or even older investors. If you’d like to chat I’d love the chance to learn.
