Why Getting Fired From My 9 to 5 Was a Blessing in Disguise for My Real Estate Business

Before I got fired from my last job, I had to master time management. I learned this when I was working a full time job, in grad school, pursuing a real estate wholesaling career. I had to learn how to properly allocate my time, which included cutting unnecessary stuff out like music, television, partying, and associating with people who weren’t going anywhere. Your time is very limited, so you must spend it wisely. Now, while I was working a job, I was doing a deal or two every other month. I remember a full time rehabber told me that I could never find deals as good as his because he spent 40 plus hours a week looking for good deals. And I was only doing it part time. That statement is not all the way true. You can still find great deals doing this part time. However, when I got fired, it was a game changer for me.

From 9 to 5 to Full-Time Investor

When I got fired, I had a lot of time to look for deals. I started doing multiple deals a month. I was able to get marketing out, pre-screen callers, and look at houses. I could look at houses in the daytime, evening, and at night in some cases. When I started making more offers, I started making more money. I could really outdo my competition by not only calling back, but also showing up. As dumb as it sounds, some of your competition won’t even return a call from a seller. I was able to get back with sellers extremely fast to get their houses locked up.

Another good thing was that I was able to connect with more cash buyers. I was now full time, so I started meeting other full time buyers. That eventually made me more money because my competition started bringing me the deals they could not sell. And I would get them sold. I got fired in September of 2012, and two months later, I put up my first five-figure month. I felt extremely empowered. That was much better than the $2,200 I took home a month after taxes at my day job. I could not maximize my marketing strategies back when I worked a 9 to 5 job. Once I started investing full time, other real estate investors would talk about how they would see me out at midnight putting up “I buy houses” signs. That made more people want to connect with me due to how serious they saw I was about it.

Another great thing was the networking opportunities. I had more time to network with other players that led to many partnerships, hard money relationships, private money relationships, and meeting more investor-friendly attorneys and real estate agents. The more my network grew, the more money I made. Please believe, there are a lot of deals being done during the 9 to 5 work day. After normal work hours, a lot of people have families, kids and other activities to attend to. So work hours are the best time to connect with other players.

Conclusion

Being full time has many advantages to up your income–the most important being the ability to evaluate your deals and other people’s deals that fall on your table. I am in no way is recommending you to go out and quit your job. Entrepreneurship is hard, and it takes time to be successful. This is just food for thought for those who are doing deals and are on the fence about quitting their job.

I recently had a friend who had a great job at a prestigious company. For years I would ask him why he worked. He had a fear of quitting his job because he had seen so many people quit only to look for another job a few months later. Now, this guy probably had about $7-10k in net cash flow coming in a month from real estate. I assured him he would not be looking for a job anytime soon. Well, he didn’t buy what I was saying at the time. About two years later, he finally quit and enjoys it more than ever. Quitting your job is a big step and might take time. We mentally become dependent on a paycheck to the point that we think we must have a “real job” no matter what. That is not the case, and you can indeed become independent with proper planning.

Have you made the jump to full time investor (or are you considering it)?

Let us know your experiences in the comments section below!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.