Single income Family buys 11 units in the NYC area in 4 years
When I was 21, I stumbled on the BiggerPockets Podcast and it changed my entire trajectory in life.
I consumed countless episodes and book recommendations and started to learn about this hitherto unknown world of Real Estate Investing.
In 2015, 4 years later, My Wife and I bought our first property, a 4-family home in Garfield, NJ.
When we closed, she was on maternity leave with our then 6-month old...
That quadplex gave us the financial freedom for her to quit her teaching job. We were able to live in one of the units for free, while the gross rents, dollar for dollar replaced her teaching salary.
2 years later, we leveraged the appreciation and hard work we put into our Garfield Quadplex to cash-out-refi and buy our 2nd property, a triplex also in the Northern New Jersey area near NYC.
Yesterday, we closed on our 3rd property, a 4-family in Lyndhurst, NJ.
That’s a total of 11 units, $1.75 M in Real Estate, and $150k in gross annual rents.
All acquired in less than 4-years' time on a single income in the NYC area. Not an impossible feat... but definitely not an easy one... it took an iron will and a shared focused dream of true and lasting freedom.
... but none of this could have been possible without the inception of an idea... a stumbling of critical knowledge found from a podcast all those years ago.
Just wanted to share my story, say thank-you to BiggerPockets, and hopefully inspire other families to stay strong and validate that you can do it too!
@Sunny Burns been following your story for quite some time now, inspiring! Out of curiosity, are there other towns you are looking in North Jersey?
@Sunny Burns really awesome story!
Originally posted by @Neil Pradhanang:@Sunny Burns been following your story for quite some time now, inspiring! Out of curiosity, are there other towns you are looking in North Jersey?
Neil we've been targeting low property tax town next to train stations in easy commuting distances to NYC. Garfield, East Rutherford, Wallington, etc. That being said we stay away form flood zones, and seem to have a knack for finding good deals not listed on the MLS.
Awesome story, I lived in Garfield for 7 years before moving to Florida
@Sunny Burns How did you finance your properties?
Originally posted by @Kwame Darko:@Sunny Burns How did you finance your properties?
Lived at home for the first 2- years of our marriage, packed our own lunches to work, and other frugal stuff, and saved about $75k.
Then used a small local portfolio lender to do conventional financing and put 10% down with no PMI.
Second property we used a HeLOC on the first property and put 15% down, same bank.
@Sunny Burns That is inspiring. Nice work. Good luck for 2020