Revisiting and Rebuilding My Real Estate Journey

I have been in the real estate business since 1981, when I found out I might lose my house due to the back taxes owed... I didn't even know that I had a house!  The house in Long Island, New York was left to me by my grandparents and my Aunt was the Executor of the estate.  I was a minor when I first got the property (along with my sister and four other cousins). Long story short, my father bought out myself and the cousins and took over the house.  I learned a lot about inheriting real estate, real estate taxes, managing an estate and got some cash from the deal.

This sparked my interest in owning real estate, and I knew I wanted to own in Manhattan, In 1984, at the age of 24, I bought a studio apartment on the Upper West Side of NYC after taking a no money down seminar.  I wish I would have bought more real estate around that time, especially the brownstones in Harlem that the city was giving away for $1.00.  I rented my NYC apartment from 1994 - 2010, while I lived in California focusing on my career in Hollywood (Media and Yoga).

In 1998 I inherited my mother's house in Virginia with my sister.  With the proceeds from the sale, I purchased my 2nd home in California (pictured above).  In 2002, I was swindled out of a lot of money in a stock market scheme and was able to rebuild through a home equity line of credit of credit. I sold the house in 2004 and with the proceeds, paid off debt, traveled, rented an apartment by the beach in Cali and paid off my place in Manhattan.

The 2008 economic recession, really shook me because it got harder to get real estate financing and secure a job.  While I was saving money and waiting on the lease to run out for my tenant in my Manhattan apartment, I stayed with my Father, who still owned the place in Long Island.  I still considered it Grandma's house (the family house), my Father made it clear that it was his house.

I officially moved back into my Manhattan apartment in 2010 and have been amazed at how the NYC real estate market has increased about 600 percent!  So now in 2016, after losing a full time job in media at the beginning of the year... real estate has got my attention full time.

In February 2016, I went to the Fortune Builders training in NYC and followed up with the 3 day intensive.  The upsell educational coaching did not make sense for my budget so I explored alternative resources.

I met an associate who I will refer to as my accountability partner and together we are independently researching and building our real estate business beginning with understanding wholesaling real estate.

I am delighted to be a part of the BiggerPockets community and I welcome all comments as my real estate journey continues...