Today I turn 27. Today I close on a half million dollar 4 unit property. 

Needless to say, I’ve been busy.

Life is filled with so many ups and down. Right now life is up. Just a few short months ago life was not so up. As a matter of fact, just a few hours ago I had no clue that I would be closing today or launching a podcast today.

Late 2016 I was a young and hungry entrepreneur. To that fact nothing has changed. But I say that to highlight the slow progress made leading up to this day.

In August of 2016 I decided to buy my second rental property having purchased the first one just 3 months prior in Houston Texas. I decided that the opportunity was in Dallas so I packed my bags… actually I didn’t pack my bags. Let me explain the plan. I had been working hard all summer to create a few streams of passive income, some I’ve stuck to but most were failures. The idea was that if I was able to create these streams, I would then be able to use the profit made to invest in Real Estate and start building generational wealth for my family while creating the lifestyle I see for us in the near future. Real Estate still is the goal. The plan, however has changed drastically since then.

I began my search for my 2nd property to house-hack, renovate and then move a tenant in. Similar to the plan for my 1st property. I quickly realized that the market was entirely too hot and it would take me a lot longer than my previously estimated 3 week deadline to get off of a friends couch. Not coincidentally, my girlfriend lives in Dallas and has been instrumental in my success and supported me through what we thought would be a 3 week process but turned out to be a 9 month process - No, not a baby. It literally took me 9 months to move to Dallas Tx. It’s now time to actually pack my bags be a resident of Dallas.

In the past 9 months, I’ve made numerous offers on properties, I’ve even had a couple properties under contract. I had a futuristic 215K purchase price condo under contract for 4 whole months just to walk away empty handed because the seller (knowingly or unknowingly) neglected to disclose certain liens against the property. This was one of the worst roller coaster rides I have ever been on to date. Today, I am grateful for the experience and wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’ve learned so much and I’ve grown as a person in ways you wouldn’t believe. Through the process I’ve had so many sleepless nights, falling out with family members and friends, thousands of dollars and time thrown away. I mean it was gruesome. Luckily (or unluckily), I had been through a lot of the same problems before so I wasn’t a stranger to the lows. I actually spent the previous 2 years in what I believe to be the lowest points in my life - I’m sure I’ll cover this in a future post or on the podcast. So for now when you think “low, think LOW! These low equipped me with the “grit” I needed to stay afloat and keep my head above water while the world around me, as I knew it, was crashing and burning. I couldn’t close on anything, none of my businesses were profitable - in fact they were eating into my cash for the property purchase and any other funds they could get their hands on. I had too many things going on. I would go work my corporate job, get home and work on my businesses until it was time to shower and head to my corporate job again. I don’t recall how many nights I did this or how many nights I actually did sleep, but in my car because I had arrangements to close on a property that didn’t fall through.

Late December 2016 I realized that I was taking 3 steps back for every 2 steps I took in the right direction. Over time I shutdown my businesses one by one - not only because they began to grow too costly but also because I didn’t have the time to manage them so they would never grow profitable. This proved to be a good thing as I started freeing up more time for my primary businesses at the time, an online high end furniture store and real estate.

I realized that I condensed 5 years worth of failures into 5 crazy months. I also realized that I was behind schedule on my Real estate goals. I decided to make a hard stop and seek advice. Through a series of unrelated events I was able to hone in on exactly what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, and when I wanted it done by.

January 2017 I took off to the races. My plan was to create 2 seemingly complex businesses and focus on nothing else. I decided on 2 rather than 1 because they complimented each other very well. More importantly they were right in line with my long term goals.

Short term goals; my 2017 goals are to own and operate 100 units through the purchase of apartment complexes and help millions of people through their entrepreneurial and investing journey to create a lifestyle that most don’t know is possible. I know these are massive goals, especially for someone who has a full time corporate job but by publishing this post, I am counting on you to hold me accountable.

When I finally set on my path towards my goals, I figured that the worst was behind me and that the lows of the past 2 years would finally see some balance. I was wrong. Terribly wrong. Things got worse and fast. I got more entrenched in work, deal were still falling through left and right, tenants were vandalizing my property with no regard, I was still technically homeless and the IRS decided to freeze my accounts. At this point or maybe even far before this point, many would have tucked their tails and returned to safety BUT I was determined. I learned long ago that there was really no such thing as failure if you have the right mindset. So the more life pushed, the more I pushed back. I wasn’t taking no for an answer and decided a long time ago that I would see my goals through. So that’s exactly what I did (am still doing).

I originally planned on launch the podcast late April and closing on the aforementioned property around the same time. Completely unrelated, problems with both the podcast and my real estate ventures kept creeping up one after another, it was like a never ending cycle. At one point the problems grew so ridiculous that I knew there was a force out there trying to prevent my success. Different problems would arise and I would hear statements from professionals like “in my 35 years of doing this, I’ve never seen anything like this” or “this problem has always been a myth, you’re the first person I’ve seen it happen to”. I received these words of “encouragement” constantly and always replied with a smile and a “Wow, you mean I’ll get to tell that story one day” rather than a ‘why me’ panic attack. Every day for about 20 days, I was literally supposed to close on my property (again this stint was nothing to me as I had a prior property under contract for 4 whole months before complete disaster). I kid you not, almost every day we would push the closing back a day because of some issue no one had ever heard of before or because someone on my file was being fired or leaving. Even just yesterday, I couldn’t close on my 4-Plex because the Chase Bank system that catered to our particular transaction was down, not only was it down but we were in a fight against the clock as if Chase didn’t resume functionality timely then the seller was ready to walk. The seller almost pulled out on numerous occasions but again another story. On the Podcast front, again just yesterday, iTunes (as well) was experiencing technical difficulties that had “never happened before” and that it only affect a very small group of people around the world. From the narration of this post, I’m sure you already know that I, Daray Olaleye was in that small group whereas millions of everyday users were unaffected. These weren’t the worst problems, but the most recent. These problems, or series of unfortunate events came together in one accord to cease on one day, the same day at that. My birthday! Crazy right?

My string off failures and problems, unplanned of course, have let to the bizarre outcome that is turning 27, adding a new multifamily property in my portfolio. Well, I’m at work and my lunch break is over so in turn this post is concluding. I hope this story, my story inspires you to stick with it no matter the odds or opinions! God Bless - At the end of the day he is the only one that can truly bless us.

Daray.