Updated 21 days ago on .
The $70/month sublease. In College.
My first real estate deal wasn't a purchase. It was a student sublease.
In 2019, while finishing grad school at UIUC, I rented a 2BR/1BA condo in Champaign, IL with my landlord's full permission to sublet. I charged $995/month, passed utilities through to the renter, and netted $70/month for the Fall semester.
Then my subletter graduated a semester early.
I had to fill the vacancy fast. I tried Craigslist, Facebook, and paper flyers around campus. Nothing. It was winter, students were already settled, and demand just wasn't there.
I learned pretty swiftly that what worked in Fall wouldn’t work in the bitterly cold, midwestern Winter.
The profit wasn't the real win - learning to adapt when things don't go as planned was. I'll share the next part of the story soon... it gets a lot more interesting when I was forced to pivot completely.
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P.S.: I’m still relatively new to RE investing, but in the coming days, I’ll continue sharing what I’ve learned so far in case it helps someone else take their first step.