Leveraging Strategies - Single or Multi-Family?

So due to a set of circumstances in my life I reached a climax where I had to leave corporate America to tend to my growing family and work on building my own virtual skyscraper, so to speak. I would've considered myself a part -time buy and hold type investor when I acquired a few properties that I rehabbed and turned around and leased during the buying frenzy prior to the bubble. Truth be told I've found like many landlords will attest to is that the buy and hold strategy is not that lucrative with only a few properties and you're capped at how many you can hold. Thus, having to maintain my corporate job while holding homes that cash flowed somewhat ok but nothing we could actually live off of. I put the real estate dreams on halt for a bit feeding into this economic bubble thing, caught up in ensuring I could make ends meet for the family, comfort of the cubicle type stuff.

I was a young dude armed with quite a bit of real estate "knowledge" but felt wary about taking "action" given that I did not see the fruitful results I anticipated. I came into an awakening of sorts partly due to some unfortunate life circumstances and was forced to make the decision of leaving the comfort of the cubicle. It's often said in your darkest hour a rebirth will emerge. Well this certainly held true for me. I took an apartment investing course from a well known real estate figure whom I'll leave nameless. I was attracted to it because the figure felt "real" in their communications  and how they delivered the knowledge, it was simply a little different than some other courses I have taken. So I armed myself with this knowledge and then took on a mentorship with this figure as well and it was intense but had the meat, potatoes, and guidance most investors would want in a mentorship. Being a landlord of single family homes it was easy to see the value of having multiple units under one roof where even if you had ten vacancies you could still handle your debt service(mortgage) and still cash flow. For me it was a no-brainer and many investors have shifted gears from single family to multifamilies as a result. Can you blame em'=-) 

Although armed with a whole lot of knowledge on how to write killer offers and make yours stand out, how to even get an opportunity to tour the grounds or units, and negotiate; I found myself in competition with investment groups or buyers capable of putting up a whole lot more earnest money than I could. I was like "wow" this little or no money down thing is tough for multifamilies and the banks weren't budging on bank financing because they knew there were buyers out there that can acquire these REO multifamily properties outright with cash on hand for full asking price. A little frustration set in and it kind of dawned on me like "Duh!" you’re in somewhat of a hot multifamily REO market  for your farming area of course the no money down thing won't work and came to the realization I really have to get my earnest money up, what's the best alternative to do this. By the way if your wondering, I did try the private money route and knew how to write a killer proposal/plan as well, but by the time I caught the interest of an angel the property I was working on was snatched up by another investor to the point that my prospective angel would share my frustration cause they missed out on what would have been a great equity partnership or lucrative deal for them as well.

At this point a light bulb went on and I needed to seek a way to have a steady income to manage with low cost of entry. As much as I came to really not stand the single family game I realized that I would have to play it and leverage the profits to grow or evolve into the multifamilies. I did some research and also understood the real estate cycles and knew that this was the time to buy for smart investing with all these REO's and homes in distress regardless of single family or not because you could go to a site like bigger pockets or myhousedeals and see that these homes are moving and fast at that with cash buyers despite what the media or Uncle Tommy will tell you.    

So here I am embarking on wholesaling single family homes and multifamilies up to 4 units for now as they have a low cost of entry and are appealing to many residential income investors during these times as its becoming a strong rental market, with great cash on cash returns better than your old CD or retirement account nowadays. I currently put two properties under contract with what I would consider no money down with transactional funding sources. I will be building up my earnest money stockpile off of these for the apartment buildings I'd like to acquire or better yet seek to build a powerhouse where I deal with both single family and multifamily for a period of time and eventually evolve to multifamilies, self storage /hospitality, and absentee franchises.

What I've learned is that although I did not start out strong with my initial endeavor of multifamilies I am forever armed with the knowledge, language , and knowhow of apartment building investing as well as single families. Let's face it for those that have ventured there know it's a little different ball game than single family investing and when you speak to the brokers or angels they can separate the real from the fake in an instant.

Bottom Line at first I despaired and didn't realize I was getting a blessing in disguise in mapping out my real estate destiny towards my ultimate goal of multifamily investing and now I'm armed with knowledge of both and will be leveraging this. Hence the birth of my company Spectrum Holdings & Investments, LLC : "Leveraging Diversity In Real Estate Investments". When you come to understand a little bit more about the power of words and manifestation in your life you could understand why I may have chosen this name and mission, because it's already done and I'm moving in lockstep towards it. Hope you found some inspiration from this as no ideas or troubles are original under the Sun and we have patents, trademarks, and good advice to overcome it all =). Peace, Abundance and Blessings!