From the past to the present

My beginning in real estate began out of the base necessity of real estate. I needed a place to live! After my freshman year of college, I decided to stay in College Station to work over the summer. Unfortunately, dorms don't allow you to stay so I had to find another place to live. Since it was 2009, the market had just finished crashing and the government was doing everything to try to build it back up. There was this wonderful program called "First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit". It was simply that. If you bought your first home and lived in it for a year, the government would give you $8,000!! WOOHOO! I asked my most convenient private lenders *cough* Parents *cough* to spot me $8k for a down payment and said I would pay them back with my tax rebate. So I put 10% down on an $80k home and bought my first investment. (I actually ended up borrowing 11k since I didn't know about costing cost...... opps!)

Now there I was. I was a college student with his own 3/2 home. What now!?! I decided to rent my two spare rooms out to fellow college students. Thankfully with the rental rates being what they were in College Station, I was able to rent out two rooms and cover ALL THE BILLS! I became a college student in a home with no bills to pay. I will admit that after I had paid my parents back, this newly found disposable income led to many fun nights! Once I finally got my act (& grades) together that summer, I decided to set aside what I would be paying in rent in a savings account. I put aside $600/month for the next 3 years. 

After having to replace the HVAC twice (Texas summer + poor work by the HVAC installer = double whammy!), I had saved up enough money and put 10% down owner occupied on a rental property. Yes I lied to the bank but I was in college and stupid! That was my life for 2 more years! Money coming in from roommates & the other rental property. I was living like a king. Well like a college level king were the consumption of $5 pizza and Shiner is a regular diet. Life is simpler in college.

Then I moved down to Galveston, Tx. I quickly learned that managing properties remotely, especially with college students, is rather difficult. Therefore I sold those two properties and bought two more down on the island. I spent every spare moment looking at real estate. I found BiggerPockets and was soon extremely addicted. I realized I loved doing real estate more than the idea of finishing my Ocean Engineering degree. So I switched! I took the Kaplan at home course in real estate and became a Realtor. Now I solely looked at properties all day and got to help others find their homes or investments. 

I've been able to purchase 4 more homes since then. I even started my own real estate investment company to use private funding to buy more rental properties. It has been a slow climb but I'm still scraping by. I jumped head first into this and I love what I do. As this train slowly leaves the station, I see my path in front of me. I know if I continue to push, I will gain momentum. Once I do, nothing is going to stop me!