You can be the most earnest and inspired entrepreneur but the leviathan of the state is easily capable of quashing all your best laid plans with little effort.

So, be prepared when the owner/broker comes to you and says either A) We are closing up shop, so find another home by XX date, or B) Coldwell Banker (or fill in the blank brokerage firm) is buying me out. 

Hello fellow BP members,I wanted to recap my last 5 years as an investor hopefully to inspire someone to jump into the field.I started out in August of 2012 with a SFR that I still own today.

I referenced it here as my inspirational view of "oh, so that's how savvy investors can make it" - though I'm not expecting this kind of return out of the gate, and I apologize if I mislead.Credit for the below example goes to Brian Murray's book (I pulled this example from the online version available as a sample on Amazon since I only have the audio book):Bank Financing: $750K @ 5%Seller Financing: $150K @ 5%Cash: $100KTotal: $1MGross Revenue: $200K/yearExpenses: $100K/yearNOI: $100K/yearDebt Service: $63K/year$37K/$100K = 37% Cash-on-Cash-Return with a 2.7 year payback period.Principal paydown first 5 years = ~$103K or $20K/yearRevised NOI = $37K + $20K or a 57% annual return.Doing the math, at 5 years, the value creation is $9.54 for each $1 invested.

Filled with inspiration, humility, stories of humble beginnings and fierce scaling.

I recently picked up The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner, which inspired me to log into my old BiggerPockets account and introduce myself.My interest in real estate investing started due to our journey towards financial independence.

One of the largest challenges, the individual referenced are the limited credit history most immigrants have @ 2-3 years, they tend to be very aggressive about their pursuit of home ownership (this is a good thing), being an immigrant myself (Eastern Europe), I can certainly attest to the inspiration many of these individuals have to live the "American Dream."  

The entrepreneurial spirit of my Grandfather, now a retired homebuilder, inspired me to first start my own company and now to pursue real estate.My next venture is going to be a residential/ commercial rental and development company with a built in property management staff who will supervise and manage the units.

So after my Bigger Pockets Podcast came out, I was very touched by how many people reached out to me and told me how inspired they were with my story.

Here is one of the most inspiring stories of rags to riches, to rags... to riches again.