I grew up poor in southern Maryland. A family of nine brothers and sisters. I planted corn and tobacco in the spring and the fall and worked the sport fishing boats during the summer. At the age of 16 I joined the Navy for two tours.

Three of the most important things I ever learned is :

. Mae your bed every day that way you start the day accomplishing something.

. following the same advice everyone else does leads to rigid thinking and lack of problem solving skills.

. learn 1 new skill every day from some source like YouTube ad keep a log of the skills and the source.

I started investing by purchasing rundown 1 bedroom condos for 40 to 50 k . I would ask the owners to hold the note for 3 to 5 years at market rates. I would live in them while doing the renovation room by room. I did all the work myself while studying for my MHIC license .

After the first 3 I had 3 rentals with tenants. I then paid off the 3 loans and got a consolidated loan for the next 2.

(Got married and my wife after a little training took over the accounting and tenant relations as well as final renovation decisions like paint colors and decor.

Fast forward, we then did 15 town houses ( I went to part time work ) , started hiring nieces and nephews for summer work. We started on single family homes (paying cash).

At this point we were adding other family members full time to fill other positions like Demolition, Reno Build out, marketing, pre purchase.

At this point we also started a 401K program, education program.

Note anyone hired had to work on a minimum of 5 house projects from start to finish, learning all aspects of renovation including swinging a hammer, digging ditches, estimating not only projects , but time estimates.

This point we found a great niche market, corporate executives rentals. Mainly to large companies that bring in CEO and C suite executives. These are 4 to 5 bedroom McMansions on 3 acre lots. These properties come fully furnished, a maintenance plan and land scraping plan.

We then split the companies into divisions and refined the roles .

Internal controls include:

. every division has a division manager and assistant division manager.

. AP and AR are separate persons.

. We run Quickbooks with Contractors Job Cost (updates disabled, so we don't have to pay for subscription services. Microsoft Office Suite ( disabled) Crystal report writer, proprietary property management and tenant portal software, proprietary property job cost software that allows me to import property lists and run ROI calculations on an infinite number of properties based on parameters entered.

We are retiring now at 55, it’s times to spend a lot more time surfing ad scuba diving .

My wife and I have enjoyed both the good ties and bad times of investing. Our daughter will be CEO and we are confident she will do well as she has been my XO for the past 3 years. We are also staying on as the Board of directors for the next 10 years.

We had lawyers involved in the purchase and a complete review of corporate documents.

Feel free to ask any questions, I’m more than willing to answer certain questions.