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Posted over 9 years ago

Did I learn anything the first time around?

My real estate story begins with  young man, about 21, that was lost in the world and joined the Air Force to find himself, but we arent gonna get into the psycho-babble crap and Ill just hit the high points.

I met a guy that had ambition and knew more than about the way things work than I did. He talked about owning homes around the world by just enjoying life int he military. It sounds pretty compelling, dont you think? So, I took up his plan and bought a house. Then I got married. Then I decided I could "do better" than the military and got out. We moved home to finish school. Anybody wanna guess how much a college education helped out? Yeah, pretty much what you think. It got me $15000 in debt and I started working as a stocker at Walmart during the week and delivering pizza on weekends to pay my bills. 

Then we had my son. Then we got divorced. I sold the house we had bought while I was in the military to pay off our mutual debts and pay for the divorce. Hey, at least it afforded us a clean break. But we both still had school debt.

Soon after, my parents offered to sell me their house as they had already moved away and needed it off their books. I mean, with an extra house eating their monthly cashflow, they couldnt get another loan. I bought it for what they still owed on it. A good price, but man, the house was in bad shape. I took it because I knew it had potential to be a money maker, but also, I knew with them selling it to me, I could find someone foolish enough to give me a mortgage. My parents probably believe they gave me a total sweetheart deal (which is true), but I also gave them a good deal because I took all the headaches off their hands. Things were breaking down that a new buyer would want fixed. Stuff they didnt want to move, never got moved. It was a true win-win.

This is the part in the story where I point out that I have no real skills or knowledge at major household repair. I can paint. Not much more. And I had this HUGE house -that I really couldnt afford- crumbling around me. I started working ont he rooms in the house to make them not just "livable" but MARKETABLE. I needed to rent out everything square I could to pay the monthly utilities. I poured every extra dollar into it and moved section by section to make it usable. Tax returns, bonus checks, occasional credit cards when it was an emergency and built each section up until I was renting out parts of the house to the point that the entire monthly expenses of the residence were covered by other people. I felt rich. I had "extra money". Which I spent immediately on fun, but thats another story. 

The house was done, and I could live comfortably, but now what? I had no ability to get another loan for a new house. No plan for turning this idea into a business. I got clostrophobic and restless about life and I read a book. This is where the real adventure begins. So tune in next time!!


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