From Broke Greeting Card Writer to Successful Real Estate Investor

I never started out with the intent of being a real estate investor. I wanted to be a writer. I didn't know if that was a possible career. I had never known anybody in the entertainment business, or anyone had at least who had succeeded out there, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I began pursuing that. I started out as a greeting card writer and illustrator in the alternative humor department at American Greetings. Then my cards got me hired to write for David Letterman. Then moved out to LA, realized – I was in New York and realized that most of the business was in LA. Moved out here and joined a new show called Family Guy back in 2000, or ’99 was when Family Guy started. I was convinced that I was going to be unemployed all throughout the early stages of my career. I was convinced that in six months, I was going to be unemployed and never working again. What happened is I was in an apartment, my one-bedroom apartment with my girlfriend at the time and my wife now. They raised the rent. The landlord raised the rent and looked at other apartments. We visited an apartment, walked out and saw an open house across the street and we – it was a Saturday afternoon, so he wandered in and talked to the broker. Her name was Junan. We said we're not really buyers, we just visited the apartment across the street and she's like, “Well, what's your financial situation?” “I had just gotten my first script payments at Family Guy. I had been in debt and broke for what seemed like an eternity my whole life, but I had about $45,000 saved up at this point with my first couple script payments.” She’s like, “You should put that toward a mortgage.” I was, “I don't want a mortgage.” If I'm going to be unemployed, that's thing I want is the burden of a mortgage. I said, the only thing I would ever consider is it would have to be the best investment I've ever made, because I could sure use some financial cushion, or other source of income for when I am unemployed, which I was always sure I was going to be. We parted ways. She called me a couple weeks later. She said, “I found the property you need to buy.” There's a catch, you need to become a landlord. She showed me a duplex in a great up-and-coming area. It was marginal at the time, but you could tell it was coming up fast and it needed some work. I looked at it. I could see the potential and said, sure. Got into a bidding war. Got this duplex and tried to embrace being a landlord in this real estate purchase I just made, which I was a 100% convinced it was a huge mistake and was going to be a disaster for me. I hooked immediately on real estate, turning property into something that was really nice and full. The economics of it worked. I had my next-door neighbor from Virginia as well, Mike Henry, who is a voice actor in Family Guy. He does the voice of Herbert, Consuela and Cleveland, if anyone now watches the show. He was my tenant next door. It was an easy first landlord experience, although somewhat easy. I don't know. Maybe he's a good tenant to learn how to be a landlord within 2000, sold at 2005. Had a pretty remarkable return. I bought it for $435,000, which I was convinced had overpaid, but I sold it for 1.27. By that time, I was completely hooked. Real estate, I had discovered this thing that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. This was my investment vehicle. It was going to give me security in the entertainment business. Yeah, I was no longer ever going to put money towards just a financial manager who would get me 4% to 5%. I was going to actively invest. I did so throughout the early 2000s and started to build my portfolio.

Listen to full episode: https://lifebridgecapital.com/2019/09/ws328-from-broke-greeting-card-writer-to-successful-real-estate-investor-with-mark-hentenmann/