When my husband and I purchased our first rental property in February of 2018, I never imagined that in 2 short years I would accomplish $1.3 million in real estate deals! It’s been a fun journey so far and I wanted to share the steps I took so that hopefully someone reading this and wanting to follow the same path can learn from it. This is how I did it:

After saving and learning about real estate investing for about a year, we acquired our first rental property in February 2018 for $90,500. This one and all of our other acquisitions were done with 30-year conventional financing. Some were with 20% down and others with 15% down. We continued saving and acquired our second rental property in October 2018 for $49,000. Then we got a HELOC on rental property #1 since it had $50,000 in equity (both from purchasing it at a great deal and doing a minor rehab) and used part of that loan, plus cash we had saved, to acquire the third rental property in February 2019 for $123,000.

Throughout the year of learning and the first year of investing, I was very active on BiggerPockets. After acquiring the third property I wrote a blog titled “How We Purchased Our First 3 Rental Properties Out of State in 1 Year” and it got featured on the member’s blog homepage and on BiggerPockets’ newsletter as the featured article! I networked A LOT after that article being featured with both newbie investors and experienced investors. This is when I decided I would get my real estate license in Florida where I was investing. I took the online course and passed the Sales Associate exam while I was 7 months pregnant with my first baby in May 2019.

From my networking, we created a partnership with one of the people I met from the article feature who wanted to invest in Florida. Together we acquired our fourth, and his first, rental property in September 2019 for $95,000. We plan to acquire 20+ properties in the future under this partnership.

Through the article feature we met another investor, who lives out of the country, that wanted to work with us. We helped her acquire her first rental property in Florida in November 2019 for $91,875. I also successfully managed the rehab process for her and am currently working to help her acquire two more properties in 2020.

One of my BiggerPockets friends wanted to work with an agent on the ground since he lived a few hours away from Jacksonville. I referred him to my agent and he acquired a rental property in December 2019 for $136,500.

Throughout all of this time we saved more money and with our rental income we acquired our fifth property in January 2020 for $195,000.

I work very closely with my agent not only on our own deals, but with helping other investors find properties. I talk to him on a very regular basis either by email, phone or text. He knows how much I network and brought me an off-market deal of three multifamily properties in a very hot area of Jacksonville that only he had access to. I had the perfect buyer for him and within a couple of days they signed the purchase agreement in February 2020 for $535,000. I met this buyer last year and simply stayed in touch with him. I will be assisting this investor while he manages his first rehab from out-of-state with the contractor that I referred him to and I am sure we will do many more deals together in the future as well.

Add that all up and it’s $1,315,875 in real estate deals!

I didn’t go into this planning on doing deals with other investors or helping other investors acquire properties. I simply enjoyed meeting other like-minded people and talking to them about real estate. The partnership we created and the other investors I helped with acquisitions were not deals that happened overnight. They each took months, and one of them took one year of keeping in touch, to make it happen. The moment I met these people I didn’t know I would find them a deal down the road and they did not know that I would be providing them with a great deal in the future. This is what is so fun about this business. You never know what will come from the next person you meet and start talking to. It could be a quick conversation or it can turn into a life-long partnership with many deals to come!

Another fun part about real estate investing is connecting people together. The contractor that I referred to the multifamily deal is someone who helped me on our very first acquisition. Our tenant abandoned the property and he helped us rehab it. He was always someone I wanted to send more business to as he helped me a lot along the way by going to different properties that we wanted to acquire and providing feedback on the condition. None of the properties he gave me bids on worked out, but he continued trying to help me and now I was able to send work his way. When you are honest and help others, you attract other likeminded people. I’m excited to continue working with these amazing people and with new people that I’ll meet in the future.

Feel free to reach out with any comments or questions, I love talking real estate with new people!