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Posted almost 5 years ago

My First entry into Real Estate.

Hi Peeps!

            A little bit about my history and then i'll dive into my first foray into real estate and what it did for me. I grew up in Sioux City, IA and was the son of a businessman that liked to play monopoly. My dad got me an audio book called the millionaire next door and the hundreds of times I listened to it shaped my internal views on money. I would of course save any money that I did earn as a kid and had large plans of owning a chain of pet stores when I grew up (I was really into animals).

        When I started High school my dad passed away and the lawyer told my sister and I we each had 100 k insurance money in the bank. I said I preferred to have my dad back, which was a snotty thing to say but I was grieving. Since I was under age my Mother had to have control over the money and she put it in savings bonds earning 4% interest at the time. As high school progressed I asked my career counselor if I could get an internship at a pet store since I was too young to be hired. She said actually kinda similar there is an internship at the Omaha Zoo you could do. I shadowed zoo keepers feeding gators and venomous snakes and I loved it.

         Figuring I was set financially, I went to a private college and took out loans at zero interest until graduation. The local zoo provided me an internship and I was ready to become a zoo keeper once college was done. Even though, the 2008 financial crisis was going on I was just working at a pet store while in college and my inheritance was earning interest while I went to school so I was OK.

         I graduated and was a manager at a pet store making $10 an hour while I waited for a zoo keeper position to open up. I was also hanging around town since my girlfriend was still in college. I took my girlfriend to the Omaha zoo and we got engaged there. I had heard somewhere that those that have the most financial success set roots and get to know an area so we decided we would buy a house and stay in town.

        My student loans were about to go into repayment so I looked into getting access to the chunk of change I had not spent. I asked my mother to show me how I could sell some of the bonds to pay the student loans off. All in all we had about about 66 k of student loan debt ranging from 8-12% starting in a few months. After a heated argument I discovered my mother had a gambling problem and had spent all of it. She is doing better now.

      Obviously this was a blow, after all I was working a $10 an hour job and had roughly $750 a month student loan payments about to start and now no cash in the bank to pay them off. I decided that I could either struggle financially and blame this situation for my lack of success the next 15-20 years while the debt was paid off, Or I could do something about it.

         I read Rich Dad Poor Dad and became obsessed with getting real estate assets. I convinced my Fiance to let us have our first house be a multifamily rental property. We looked at a couple 4-plexes but all that we could afford was a duplex. We got married in 2012 and the next week moved into our new home. We lived in the upstairs tiny two bedroom and rented out the larger 3 bedroom to some college friends. This helped reduce our living expenses drastically as the lower level paid for the mortgage payment of the whole property.

      With the lower living expenses I switched my day job to working at a lab which paid $15 an hour and kept working at the pet store part time. I had some pet geckos and breed them and sold the babies. I then waited tables on the weekends and my wife gave plasma for cash outside of her job. Since my wonderful wife had an odd shift at the call center she picked up a part time job at a grocery store working overnights stalking shelves. It was here she met someone whos husband was looking to hire someone with an accounting degree and she ended up getting a really great job from that connection.

       After about 2.5 years of focused intensity my Wife and I were DEBT FREE! We still had the mortgage on the duplex but it was a very low interest rate. The fun thing was we had both started to make more and were in a pretty good groove with the extra jobs so we kept going. We saved up and bought a four plex. We had moved into a single family home and now had 6 rental units that were cash flowing.

      I stayed involved with the local zoo and was able to help donate to the new bear exhibit. By this point I was teaching high school science and managing the rental property in my spare time.I was reading books, listening to dozens of podcasts, and meeting people in the industry. I decided to focus on learning instead of earning and transitioned to work for a local property management company.

      That is how I started in real estate and started my journey toward getting out of the rat race.


Comments (1)

  1. Great story Andrew! Your father did you a great favor by getting you interested in managing money smartly. What a gift!  Looks like you are making the right moves and are well on your way. You deserve to be proud of your accomplishment. 

    Bonnie Griffin Kaake