{"id":78893,"date":"2017-03-13T11:30:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T17:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=78893"},"modified":"2021-03-16T12:01:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T18:01:00","slug":"2016-07-15-age-26-financial-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2016-07-15-age-26-financial-freedom","title":{"rendered":"At Age 26, I’m on the Brink of Financial Freedom: Here’s How I Did It"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year and a half ago, I told the following story. I had so many people contact me and thank me for writing it over the past year or so that I wanted to go back through, update it and republish it to share, help, and inspire more people.<\/p>\n

In this post, I will tell you how the long struggle of choosing to stay broke has left me with a foundation strong enough to now begin the\u00a0pursuit towards wealth.<\/p>\n

For some reason, real estate has been labeled a get-rich-quick joy ride for entrepreneurs. This\u00a0is funny because in my experience, it has been more like a be-broke-for-a-long-time uphill climb. Can you get rich quickly and easily from real estate? Definitely — and you can also do that with the lottery. Unfortunately, both of those results are unlikely to repeat, and neither are anything close to sustainable. Getting rich quickly requires the use of self discipline in order to utilize the power of exponential growth AFTER you put in the long grind of foundation building. Whether that foundation is in knowledge, money, or connections, it must be built!<\/p>\n

Exponential Growth is a Powerful Thing<\/h2>\n

I was never a good student in school. I would daydream, not care, and halfway pay attention to lessons. However, I do distinctly remember being taught about exponential growth. I have no clue what grade that was, but I remember typing 2^2 = 4 in my calculator, and then tapping the \u201c=\u201d button over and over to watch the numbers climb higher and higher.<\/p>\n

The math behind exponential growth forever stuck with me. I always related it back to money. As a middle schooler, I would run scenarios, such as what if had one dollar and it doubled every day for a month?<\/em> BUT WAIT — what if I started with 100 dollars and it doubled every day for a month? Boom.<\/em> An investor was born.<\/p>\n

Related:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0How Much Money Do You Need to be \u201cRich\u201d and Is It Worth It?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

My brother (my 50\/50 business partner) and I share views on finance and wealth building. We have worked together since I was 18 years old. We began by opening a handyman business back in 2008 while living in a \u201chouse hack<\/a>\u201d with six guys. Through word of mouth, trial and error, and a ton of effort, we grew that company into a successful home renovation business, rehabbing kitchens, bathrooms, and additions for homeowners. It was pretty cool being 19 and making good money off these projects.<\/p>\n

However, unlike the majority of our peers, we didn\u2019t blow it at bars or on clothes. We saved it because we were never going to be the smartest by a long shot or have the most connections. What we did know was that we could out-work others, and if we had the capital to work with, we could build the foundation necessary to do so.<\/p>\n

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Take the Classic Investing Approach and Flip It on Its Head<\/h2>\n

The classic real estate investor newbie says, “I want to wholesale<\/a> so I can make enough money to put a down payment on a house to flip<\/a>.” After they profit from several flips, they can have enough money saved up to put a nice down payment on a buy and hold property so that one day they can pay it off and have a nice passive, cash flowing rental. Great. But where is the foundation to exponentially grow on? My partner and I are working the inverse of that equation (with some variation). I\u2019ll explain how later in this post.<\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong> Financial Freedom: 14 Steps to Stop Relying on Your 9-5 Job\u2019s Income<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Have you ever heard \u201clive below your means”? We took it one step further and lived at our lowest means — and did so for a long time. While running the home renovation company, we paid ourselves very little — some months nothing, some months $500. Remember, we were in college living in a house hack with six people, renting each room out. It\u2019s funny; everyone is poor during college living off practically nothing, but as soon as they get some income, it\u2019s impossible for them to continue living at such low means.<\/p>\n

We got paid well, lived at the bottom of our means, and saved in order to prepare to enter into real estate investing. By 2012, we began buying highly distressed SFRs, rehabbing them all cash. We then rented these newly renovated properties out and took NO money for ourselves. We looked at it as if it wasn\u2019t ours to have. We would have 3, 4, then 5 debt-free houses renting for $800-$1000 a month, but my partner and I would be doing quick rehab jobs for others and picking up scrap metal on trash night to pay for our personal needs (groceries, cell phone).<\/p>\n

Sacrificing to Build a Foundation of Wealth<\/h2>\n

Sounds like it sucks, right? It did, but the foundation was being built. We were living like most wouldn\u2019t so that one day we could live like most can\u2019t. We knew the faster the foundation was built well, the more we could utilize exponential growth. After we had 7 houses under our belt, we finally leveraged some of them to continue the growth into another 4 SFRs, 3 more duplexes, and a 5-unit apartment building. Not until two and half years after we bought our first rental did we decide to pay ourselves a whopping 6% of gross rents. I will admit some where in this mix, we were lucky enough to find great wives to help support us through this financially draining journey.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned before, we are running the inverse of the classic path of entering REI. We started by owning buy and hold properties free and clear. We then used debt from those properties to acquire more buy and hold properties.<\/p>\n

We then pulled the remaining chunk of equity out of the rental portfolio (to a safe 70-80% LTV) and ventured into flipping houses. Because of our track record and newly liquid capital, banks and private investors were now willing to lend to our company on multiple flips at once. Even with the option to borrow money, we found most of the time we had enough to do the whole flip with our own funds. This\u00a0only further accelerated profits and growth.<\/p>\n

In 2015, we did 17 flips for just under $3 million in gross sales. Because of our background in contracting, a hot market, and our hustle, each flip produced very good profits. However, flipping is risky and didn\u2019t meet our long-term goals, so by the end of 2015, we wrapped up most of the flipping. We had made a chunk of change and were ready to move onto the next step in our journey.<\/p>\n

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Setting the Framework to Scale<\/h2>\n

By the start of 2016, we had, for the most part, exited the flipping strategy. We added on our CPA asset manager as a partner to our rental company and formed a management company to consolidate operations between holding companies. At this time, we were ready to scale. We had all the systems in place and the right people. We were ready to jump in with the big boys buying apartment buildings.<\/p>\n

After struggling to find a deal that met our needs, we eventually closed a multi-million dollar apartment complex without raising any money from outside investors. All of this was possible and will continue to be possible because of the foundation that was laid years ago when we were handymen cleaning out dirty houses, not taking money out of the company to accelerate growth.<\/p>\n

After all these hard years, I am proud to say at the young age of 26, I am very close to my personal financial freedom number. That doesn\u2019t mean we will stop there. As I said before, I work for the good money can do, and I believe that good can be endless. This is why moving forward, our journey will continue by venturing into larger apartment deals through syndication in Ohio and Georgia. I know this will continue our exponential growth and will only allow us to do great things in the many years to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut That is Way Too Hard!\u201d<\/h2>\n

My partners and I are willing to make the sacrifices now in order to reap the benefits later. This sounds great, but when it comes down to actually putting this to action, it is beyond hard. By no means is this lifestyle choice for most. People claiming that sacrificing your spending money in order to build wealth is nothing new. The reality you don\u2019t hear about is all the other things that also get sacrificed. We realized that working 12-15 hour days rehabbing houses 6-7 days a week left very little room for other things. We willingly let go of much of our social lives in order to build this foundation.<\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong> The Unspoken Problem With Financial Freedom Few People Acknowledge (& How to Avoid It!)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Along with social life is the toll this can have on your health. The sacrifices go far beyond money. I know these years of buying my t-shirts out of the nine-cent box at the thrift store (yes, this does exist) will one day have a positive ripple effect on everyone important to me. We do not work for money, but rather the good money can do. We paid ourselves nothing and worked 80-hour weeks of hard labor in order to know that when the day comes\u00a0when\u00a0we have children, we can give them and our wives all they need and more while only working as much as we want to.<\/p>\n

Some may say we could have leveraged sooner — even at the beginning. They will say in the formula of exponential growth, the exponent is more powerful than the base number. They are right, but the real world isn\u2019t a formula, and having money makes it so much easier to make money. That\u2019s the foundation I talked about. If you try to grow too fast without enough money, experience or connections, your foundation will crack, and you wont have any money to repair it. The next thing you know, you will be looking around saying,\u00a0what the hell happened?<\/em>\u00a0You must take the time to build the foundation of knowledge, money, and connections.<\/p>\n

\"great-property-manager\"<\/p>\n

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Advice to the Beginner<\/h2>\n

Plain and simple, there are thousands of ways easier than the approach my partner and I took to build a foundation for growth. It worked really well, but there are better ways. You may be asking, “Then why didn\u2019t you\u00a0use the better ways?” The truth is, it\u2019s because we didn\u2019t know how — or even know they existed. We entered our investing career full blast, we hit the ground running. We didn\u2019t take the time to educate ourselves well. We didn\u2019t network with anyone for the longest time.<\/p>\n

I did whatever I knew how in order to build my foundation stronger. We just were\u00a0go go go<\/em>, and when a roadblock came along, we just pounded away until it broke. Little did we know, with knowledge and the right connections, you can avoid half of the roadblocks we ran into. Along with our all-out approach, we were fortunate to enter REI in one of best markets to buy into. Because of this, our mistakes didn\u2019t hurt us as badly. Had it been 2006, our growth would have been much different.<\/p>\n

My advice is simple to beginners: You don\u2019t have to be a pro, you don\u2019t need a team of 10 people. Just understand what REI is, and get a grasp on the basics of it. Find a couple people who\u00a0you can call when you get stumped. Then hit the ground running with this amazing website (BiggerPockets), and you can accomplish all that relatively quickly. The rest you can sort out along the way, as long as you continue to learn from your mistakes and educate yourself as you progress. You don\u2019t need a degree or anything special.<\/p>\n

When you make things happen, things happen! Just don\u2019t ever plan for it to be easy or that you will get rich quickly. Once you get rolling, continue the sacrifices to build your foundation. Once your foundation is strong, let \u2018er rip and watch the hard work pay off. If you aren\u2019t able to have the self-discipline to sacrifice either time, money, or both, then entrepreneurship isn\u2019t for you.<\/p>\n

The only sustainable way to get rich quickly in real estate is to use self-discipline and sacrifice up front, building the foundation. So one day with the power of exponential growth, you will be able to get rich quickly!<\/p>\n

[Editor’s Note: We are republishing this article to help out our newer members.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Where are YOU on your journey to financial freedom?<\/em><\/p>\n

Share your story below!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Easy? Not at all. Worth it? Absolutely. If you’re willing to sacrifice now, you CAN set yourself up for an amazing future. Learn how one investor did it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12645,"featured_media":86873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-business-management"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12645"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}