And they said I would never do it!! If I can, SO CAN YOU...
Hi everyone! My name is Aaron Yates. I just found this site a couple days ago but have been glued to it for 3 days now. I love it. I needed this years ago so my venture could have been a lot easier for me to get where I am. But now I plan to be an avid member. I have been reading a lot of posts from people wanting to get into Real Estate. It seems wholesaling is the most popular.
I myself currently invest in SFR rental houses but am educating myself with reading and the help of members here to expand my company, and yes into wholesaling because I need capital.
I don't know if I consider my story a success story completely because I haven't reached my goal. But what I would like to do is help to inspire all of the aspiring investors who think they can't do it or have those people in their life who do nothing but give negative feedback to you when you talk about your dreams and goals.
I am going to try and keep this as short as I can but I want people to get the full picture. I want you to see that anything is possible if you truly want it. I honestly could write a book about my story and have been really contemplating it. But again, have no clue how to or where to even start to do it. I obviously won't give all the hardships in my life in this post. I will stick to what most of you will be able to relate to.
I'm not a millionaire (yet) by any means. Just a normal working JOE still building my dream.
I started getting interested in Real Estate in my early 20's ( I am now 36). When I would talk to people about it they would give the normal responses of "that's stupid', "you can't do that", " it's a scam" and on and on and on... I'm sure many of you deal with this as I still do to this day, but just not nearly as much.
I was broke. I installed hardwood floors, delivered pizzas, managed pizza stores, worked in a mail room, poured concrete, installed custom car audio.. and any other job that would put food on my table and pay the bills. I truly did live check to check. Lived on my best friends living room floor, my grandmas basement, with my Uncle, and finally was able to save up $1200 to pay back rent on a 1950's trailer in a dumpy park that I got for free.
This is all real. I promise you. There is more, but I want you to get the picture of where I started and the path I had to get me where I am today. I have no college degree or college experience. Just a high school diploma and a graduating score of 1.8 GPA. I tell you this because I know there are people out there like me that think that can't do this. But you can, if you truly want to!
In July of 2003 I was fortunate to get into the auto industry as a robot programmer due to a "friend" owning a company. And now I'm sure you are saying, oh of course, he got a good job. Well the pay isn't what you would think when you go from installing hardwood floors to a job you have no clue of what it is or how to do it. But a joke at a bachelor party led me to getting the job as well as my drive, motivation, and eagerness to better myself.
But my dream was still to do Real Estate. So in February or March of 2004 I bought the Carleton Sheets Real Estate Education Kit. This kit cost me $100 and I had 30 days to review it.
So I reviewed the books and documents in it without opening any of the discs because I knew I would have to return it. I was broke and needed that $100. Meanwhile, my cousin was my roommate and I got the constant negative comments from him just like everyone else gave me. So I eventually shut down and locked the dream away in the closet.
Fast forward to November of 2008. I had been programming now for 5 years. I worked crazy hours. 84 a week normally. So even though I didn't make much straight time, the overtime banked fast. I decided to buy a live-in flip and rent out my small 2 bedroom house I was currently living in. I had no knowledge of anything. I just jumped in head first.
Here is the sequence of events broke down:
November 2008 - Got married
Found distressed property and put in offer
Found tenants for my 2 bedroom home that I paid$725/month
plus paid $150 or so for a home improvement loan. Rented
the house out for $650. Do the math.. Already made my first
mistake.
January 17th, 2009 - Closed on new property using financing. Started rehabbing
February 2009 - 2 weeks after closing on the new house I was laid off.
March 2009 - Wife got pregnant
November 2009 - Son was born
December 2009 - Ran out of savings and Filed bankruptcy, lost my new truck,
my rental (well kind of, that's for another post) and was broke
again. By the way, this was the 2nd time in my life I had to
file bankruptcy. How humbling, embarrassing and sad is that!
January 2010 - Finally back to work - forgot about my real estate dream again
Worked steady from this point on. Lots of hours!!
February 2011 - Real Estate dream kicked back in
April 2011 - bought my first cash property, repaired the minor issues, and has
been rented out ever since.
Spring 2012 - had enough money saved to buy another property.
July 2012 - bought my 2nd cash property, rehabbed, sold on land contract 3
weeks later (just started the rehab process and posted ads to get
ahead of the game. I didn't really know what I was doing. I was
scared if I waited to long I wouldn't find a buyer in time) with the
buyer giving $7500 EMD towards the $15K down payment on a
$43,500 purchase. I had @22,000 total into the property.
November 2012 - Closed on Land Contract deal and Bought 3rd cash property
and started rehabbing using the $15K from land contract deal
February 2013 - bought 3rd property from money saved from my J.O.B. and
rehabbed.
June 2013 - Rented out 3rd and 4th property, bought 5th cash property using
saved money again from long term project I was on and am
currently working on it using rental income from occupied properties.
To this day, I have never paid myself a penny from my properties. I reinvest everything!
Obviously there is much more detail involved in the process but I wanted you as a newbie to understand that you can do this. In my situation I have had to use my own money due to my credit and the market issues we currently have. I never completely gave up on my dream. No I am still not rich because of my JOB or my properties. I just don't over spend my income.
In fact now that I have been able to accomplish this, my dreams and goals keep changing and growing. This was able to happen for me because I finally started educating myself. I created a plan and goals. I overcame my fear. I am passionate and driven to accomplish my dreams. When I get knocked down, I get back up and become stronger from it.
I don't have the luxury of private lenders, mortgage companies throwing money at me or even partners. I travel a lot for work (50%-75%)! In fact I just returned from a 7 month project in White Marsh (Baltimore), Maryland. I am finally going to attend my first REIA meeting tomorrow July 18th and I am so excited to finally be meeting local investors in my area. I need this to educate myself more, grow my company, achieve my dreams, and help people like me when I first got started.
So my point of this post is to tell you that if you keep saying you don't have time, or you don't know people, or whatever else you tell yourself, they are all just excuses. It's your FEAR stopping you. Read books, connect with people on this site (I REALLY WISH I found this site years ago!!)
No this venture has not been easy. I have lost thousands of dollars in this venture because of my own stupidity, not being properly educated, and not screening my contractors correctly on one of my properties that I wasn't able to work on myself due to being gone for my JOB. I'm sure I will have bad deals in the future as well. But that's part of the territory.
I hope this inspires any of you that have that deep passion to invest in Real Estate! Whether small or big, if you want to do it, then make it happen. I see a lot of the same posts on here from new users and the same questions. I don't mean to be rude, but a lot of those questions can be answered by taking the time to read posts, books, and other sites offering similar information.
I am and always will be learning myself, but one thing that makes it easier for me when I ask a question is if I have a more specific question instead of a broad general "how do I start investing in Real estate?". This allows for better answers and a better understanding.
This site definitely gives a person information overload but that's good. And it's good that you want to learn everything you can and learn it fast. But start with your plan and your goals. Decide what you want to do in Real Estate. How are you going to accomplish your plans and goals (these will always change as your investing progresses)? When you come up with these, then your questions will be more precise and you will get better and more precise feedback from members on here.
Make sure you write your plans and goals down. This helps you remember and allows you to process it better. Just thinking of them doesn't allow for it to be imprinted on your brain. Well at least for me it doesn't.
Crazy as it may be, Jim Carey wrote himself a $1,000,000 check years ago before making it big. He would drive up on Mulholland Drive and tell himself he was going to live there and he will make millions of dollars one day.
He did it!! Not in his original planned timeline, but he did it.
Robert Kiyosaki uses this in his seminars. I wrote my check on 8-25-2012 and carry it in my wallet. It is dated to be cashed on 8-25-2017.
It's a mindset. If you tell yourself you can, you will. Read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki and "Think And Grow Rich" by Napolean Hill. Both are great books! Both will help your change your way of thinking, your process, and help you move in the direction you want to go.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I look forward to meeting and connecting with more members on BP and growing together.