BiggerPockets

Basically, REI is in the blood. My parents own multiple properties, and my maternal grandfather also has owned multiple properties for longer than I've been alive. I knew about easements, assessments, and evictions, before I had even had my first kiss. However, I spent a few years avoiding REI. I didn't want anything to do with it, because I learned about the negatives before I learned about the benefits.

My father even forced me to listen to some Carlton Sheets cassettes while bringing me home for Spring Break (early 1990s)--and drove me around to see about 15 properties. That's probably another reason I began to resent REI for a while.

Several years later (2002), I got reintroduced to REI via Robert Allen's "Multiple Streams of Income". Tax liens appealed most to me, because it was a way to benefit from REI without doing repairs, yard work, plunging toilets at night, tracking down a tenant to collect late rent, and all of the other property management headaches. It's completely hands off, and that was just what the doctor ordered for me. I already had enough experience with active property management to know I that I didn't--and still don't--want to do that anymore. In my humble opinion, I'd rather pay the extra 5%-10% and keep my sanity, than to save that money and lose my mind. :)

My father by accident/incident purchased a mix-use property (a duplex with a single-box commercial front) as his second acquisition, and that was my introduction to commercial. Connecting the dots, I knew that I ultimately wanted to get into commercial--partly because I never saw any other commercial owners go make rounds to collect rent (as I did with my father and grandfather). So, I figured they had to earn enough to pay someone else to do it for them. :)

Anyway, flash forward a few more years, and now I'm more gung ho about REI--especially commercial--than my parents and grandfather.

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