Mission Accomplished: Becoming a Millionaire Before 30!

Mission Accomplished: Becoming a Millionaire Before 30!

Real Estate Investor & Marketing Specialist · Montreal, QC · Member since 2013 · 182 posts · 367 votes

Hey guys,

When I started getting interested in Real Estate 6 years ago, I loved to hear stories of successful RE investors as it provided me with incredible motivation to become financially free and a full-time RE investor myself. I hesitated a long time before writing this post since I don't want to seem like I'm bragging, but I feel like sharing my story with you guys today might help and motivate many others to achieve their most desired goals as well.

In a nutshell, I bought my first triplex at age 23 with two other partners, and then completed my first singe-family flip a year later at age 24 with two partners as well. Then, I partnered up with a high-school friend and we decided we would build a Real Estate empire so we could become financially free by the age of 35. At that time (2014), we were 25 years old so that meant we had 10 years to accomplish our ultimate goal. 

For the first two years, we had full-time jobs and we flipped houses on the side. We were both able to quit our jobs in 2016 after we made roughly 200k in profits from our flips. We could pretty much afford to live off these profits for 2 full years (based on the 50k annual salary we were making at our jobs). We officially became full-time RE investors from that moment.

Then, that's when we decided to start buying multi-family properties and to shift our focus on a new goal to buy 300 doors within 3 years (by 2019), while still doing some house flipping so we could continue to pay ourselves through the business. 

In the meantime, I decided I would have my own personal goal, which was to reach the MIGHTY million dollars in net worth within the next 3 years (by 2019). 

Now at age 29, I can officially announce that my goal of becoming a millionaire in net worth has been surpassed with our latest acquisitions :)!!! I am essentially a year before schedule, which is even sweeter. My partner and I now own over 100 doors, most of which have been bought in the last 18 months, and we're not planning to stop anytime soon!

It's important to note that I started with nothing. No money and nobody in the family with a business and/or Real Estate background. I built it all from the ground up myself, with the help of my partners of course, which is what makes me especially proud. It basically means that anybody can do it, you just have to do it! That's it. Stop finding excuses and take action. If you don't know how to accomplish something, then find a way to learn how because nobody will do it for you. I know it's cheesy, but it's true!

My 2 cents!

G

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Rental Property Investor · East Wenatchee, WA · Member since 2014 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
8y

Love me a good bootstrapped ,from the ground up story!   Many congrats, Guillaume!

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  • Beloit, WI · Member since 2016 · 100 posts · 40 votes
    8y

    Congratulations! Love your story!

  • Rental Property Investor · Boston, MA · Member since 2017 · 241 posts · 135 votes
    8y

    @Guillaume D.

    Wow congrats really motivating story 

  • Rental Property Investor · IL · Member since 2017 · 100 posts · 51 votes
    8y

    @Guillaume D. congrats and very inspirational! Thanks for sharing.

    Best,

    Andrew

  • Toronto ON, Canada · Member since 2016 · 96 posts · 26 votes
    8y

    @Guillaume D. great story! All the best in your journey.

  • Cleveland, OH · Member since 2018 · 133 posts · 59 votes
    8y

    Very Very Awesome!!!

  • Real Estate Investor & Marketing Specialist · Montreal, QC · Member since 2013 · 182 posts · 367 votes
    8y

    Ok so I obviously won't be able to answer every comment, but I want to thank everybody for the nice words and the support. For those of you who have specific questions in their comments, see my answers below:

    @Alexander Biniam No, I don't live off passive income just yet because, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, I believe that cash flow is indeed an illusion in RE. Being in a market where the buildings are pretty old, we always use cash flow to improve the quality of our properties and of our units. We presently manage everything ourselves, but at some point we will have to hire a management company. We are not there yet in our business plan. 

    @Victor S. We would like to buy bigger buildings and we could easily buy bigger, we just need to find the right deals. So far, nothing bigger than 18 as come up as a good enough deal, but it will come. We were very close to buying a 48-unit lately, but it fell through during negotiations. 

    @Robert Zaccaria I'd love to do that, but it would take quite some time to write it all up! ahah

    @Deangelo Washington My favorite principle is called OPM, which stands for Other People's Money and is the key to scale quickly. There is no other way around it.

  • Real Estate Investor & Marketing Specialist · Montreal, QC · Member since 2013 · 182 posts · 367 votes
    8y

    @Account Closed Bank don't accept a higher LTV on the commercial side, it's always 75% on a conventional loan or 85% for an insured loan through CMHC. What I am saying is that they don't base their financing decisions on your personal income and expenses, but rather on the revenues and expenses of the property itself. Be careful as the bank finance 75% to 85% of the loan to ECONOMIC value of the property, and not the market value. Economic value is set by the bank based on the debt-coverage-ratio that they are looking for. It almost always is lower than the market value. This is what you see a lot of investor putting up 30-40-50% as a down payment because they pay too high a price as compared to the economic value as calculated by the banks. That's a concept that is hard to explain quickly in this post. If the professionals you are dealing with say that you can finance based on market value, you should look for new people to refer to ;).

  • Investor · Rochester, NY · Member since 2014 · 48 posts · 39 votes
    8y

    Congrats on your accomplishments! Very inspiring to hear. Keep up the good work and thank you for sharing this!

  • Real Estate Investor & Marketing Specialist · Montreal, QC · Member since 2013 · 182 posts · 367 votes
    8y

    @Karla Bazan @Mimi Evans Your best potential investors and partners are people around you because they already trust you, at least to some extent.

    @Conrad Legé Every multi-family I have ever bought was an off-market deal. We use every technique found here on BP. We've had a full-time employee for about a year now and his only responsibility is to find off-market deals, no matter how.

    @Max T. None is particularly better, every way to get there is legitimate and we all have different realities to deal with. There's no right answer unfortunately.

    @Account Closed Or get the money from somebody else to make that first down payment ;).

  • Member since 2018 · 6 posts · 0 votes
    8y

    Im trying that route first!

  • Rental Property Investor · Fort Worth, TX · Member since 2016 · 65 posts · 32 votes
    8y

    Awesome story! Thanks for sharing. 

  • Accountant · Fort mill, SC · Member since 2017 · 2 posts · 0 votes
    8y

    nice that sounds pretty awesome, i pray that when I reached aged 25 , i will be there to having a million in assets, and still doubling up in profits, right now i'm 19 and still doing wholesaling which is awesome for the moment, but I know I need to buy some of my own assets and learn how to leverage OPM, but It takes time, patience , effort, and Praying! I will be successful and I tell you on thing, being broke is only temporally, but having long term wealth is I aim to be! 

  • Rental Property Investor · Glen Mills, PA · Member since 2012 · 87 posts · 56 votes
    8y

    Thats awesome! 

  • Rental Property Investor · Cleveland, TN · Member since 2015 · 176 posts · 58 votes
    8y

    Encouraging story @Guillaume D. Thanks for sharing.

  • Investor · Chicago, IL · Member since 2015 · 75 posts · 32 votes
    8y

    @Guillaume D. Congrats!! A great story !!! 

  • Real Estate Agent · St. Louis, MO · Member since 2017 · 74 posts · 20 votes
    8y

    Very inspiring! Keep up all the hard work!

  • Real Estate Investor · Montreal, Quebec · Member since 2015 · 95 posts · 42 votes
    8y

    Great job @Guillaume D. Very inspiring and very happy for you!

  • Pompano Beach, FL · Member since 2017 · 36 posts · 6 votes
    8y

    congrats. And thanks for reigniting the flame. 

  • Rental Property Investor · Belleville, IL · Member since 2018 · 60 posts · 29 votes
    8y
    Your story is an awesome source of inspiration / motivation!
  • Rental Property Investor · Portsmouth, VA · Member since 2016 · 38 posts · 13 votes
    8y

    An amazing story...I’m next..🏃🏽♀️🏃🏽♀️🏃🏽♀️

  • Ottawa ON · Member since 2018 · 8 posts · 4 votes
    8y

    @Guillaume D. Congrats! Great motivator, and I know it might feel like bragging, it's great to hear of someone's success. It's only bragging if you're not willing to share/help/network with others ;)

  • Rental Property Investor · Florida Panhandle · Member since 2018 · 21 posts · 2 votes
    8y

    Great post, thanks for sharing! It helps to hear that your started with nothing, it gives me hope!  Keep up the great work. 

  • Rental Property Investor · Colorado Springs, CO · Member since 2018 · 682 posts · 729 votes
    8y

    @Guillaume D.

    As a young investor myself this is awesome to read so congratulations! I love to see others succeed and it's also extremely inspiring to see other people who started with nothing having success in this business. 

    I'm 22 and and am set on having complete financial independence by the time that I'm 25 which will require approximately 50 doors. I acquired my first property this year and am shooting for two more before the year is out. Stories like yours are extremely encouraging so I'm glad that you posted this!

  • David CaseyPro Member
    Boston, MA · Member since 2018 · 19 posts · 3 votes
    8y

    Congrats, thats a great story!

  • Realtor · Cincinnati, OH · Member since 2018 · 140 posts · 53 votes
    8y

    Excellent job my man; and they say us young bucks aren't crankin! ;)  Much congrats!

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