All Forum Posts by: Peter McCarthy

thanks everyone!

I appreciate it. In short I want to build up an investment portfolio of real estate that will allow me to eventually retire and support mysellf. Along the way I want to apply the lifetime of construction and electrical knowledge I have built up to rehab and add value. I missed 3 recessions where buying opportunities abounded, due to lack of funds and other personal life demands. I decided as an electrician's helper in 1978 I wanted to buy and own investment real estate. At the age of 53 I finally bought my first rental house, and this year I just refinanced  it to have a little working capital. In my 20s and 30s I read every book on real estate I could lay my hands on and I got my sales license in 97 or so. 

I had a love/hate relationship with my working class roots and the electrical trade. As such, I took many jaunts away from it, went to great universities to learn great things and wear a tie to work. I was not happy simply being a "construction worker." I have done many other things, from teaching Spanish and bilingual ed in CPS to being a political organizer for Harold Washington to working in a canary in Sacramento and working on a hospital in Houston. I received a BA from the University of Chicago in 1984 and an MA from UIC in 1994.  I grew up in a family of electricians, and it has always been there either in the background or the forefront. I knew nothing of business or commerce. I came from a very pro-labor, anti-capitalist family where "making a profit" or selling something for more then you bought it for was considered taking advantage of one's fellow man, and severely frowned upon. It took me decades of adult life to accept the wisdom, benefit, and opportunity free market capitalism and free enterprise could bestow upon humanity. I would argue there is no such thing as a truly free market, and that all economic activity is framed within a larger structure of advantages for some and disadvantages for others. 

Oh well, there goes my political side. (Please don't reply with any political debate or condemnation. This is not the place for it) 

But over all the years, I never lost my love of buildings, architecture, and real estate, and I was always aware that it was a capitalist world, and that property would rise in value over time, and you could buy it with a small down payment and reap that reward of appreciation, while what I and my dad and my grandfather sold, our labor and our backs, lost value over time. In the years when I was "doing good for the world," of course, I was taking on student debt and when working, not making much. (The world has never rewarded do-gooders very handsomely.)  So for many, many years I had no funds to work with. Being so unaware of how the capitalist world works, having no modeling or personal examples to me of how to access investment capital,I fell back on what I knew. Ijust had to save up.

Presently I own a small electrical contracting firm on the South side of Chicago and am licensed as a RE broker as well (everyone is a broker now. The boss is the "managing broker")  I first got my salesmans license in 97 or 98, and worked at Coldwell Banker and Keller Williams on the North side. But I never really found my footing in sales. My knowledge of construction and buildings did not matter very much in listing or buying houses and condos, and I did not feel very comfortable being "a salesman."  So I left it to return to the electrical business once more. I started my own company in 1996, doing residential electrical work specializing in retrofitting and modernizing old wiring systems. Most, but not all, of our work is here in Hyde Park.

I renewed my RE Sales license in 2012 almost exclusively to have reliable access to comps. My license is now with a small neighborhood brokerage. So that is the bio on me. I will start studying to get a managing brokers license shortly. I would also like to take the courses necessary for a property management certificate and eventually earn that designation of commercial investment (4 letters, can't remember) and finally take enough courses to get a home inspectors credential. I would use that knowledge for my own properties, not to have a home inspection business.

So I have a lot of goals in the next several years, all aimed generally at using my brain and experience rather than my back to earn a living, and using the power of leverage and capital appreciation to create an income and build wealth. That will allow me to use the most precious commodity, time, for healthy and important things. 

I think I any investor has an emotional and psychological component to his or her practice that is fundamental. Coming to grips with that has been critical in my recent life. When I first decided I wanted to do this, many of the now gentrified and exclusive neighborhoods in Chicago were still working class or even poor, and I had opportunities to buy in those areas that now are 8-15 times more valuable. Anyone who has been around the city since the late 70s can say that, of course. I turned down a 3 flat in the heart of Wicker Park in '86 because 105k was an outrageous price. Later in '89 I turned down a brick 3 flat in Andersonville for 110k for the exact same reason.  So in these later years, way before the 06 crash, I already had a very heavy regret weighing on me that I wasted so many golden opportunities. One thing I knew from history was that in good times everyone makes money; in bad times the rich make money. The crash in 06 or 07 brought tremendous buying opportunities, but again I did not have the funds or access to them. I was so angry at myself, since I had seen this movie several times already.  Honestly, part of what has held me back in the past several years, outside of lack of capital, was the emotional condition of regret, and negativity, that I had already "blown it," why bother trying now to pick up these little crumbs? But the reality is, maybe it's never too late, or maybe that's just optimistic clap-trap. But either way, all I've got ahead of me is what's ahead of me, and crying over what could have been never got me anywhere. Lol. I'm not the kind of guy who is unable to laugh at life and himself. That came with getting a bit older as well.

I have a hardworking wife and one daughter who is 11 now. As she gets older and needs less of my time (I put the electrical business into low gear while she was a baby and toddler to be a  stay-at-home dad) I hope to devote more time to this transition. Now she is in middle school and before long HS then college. I would like to help pay for her college through prudent investments, and her wedding too!  As for me, I'm not overly materialistic or greedy but I do believe in profit and entrepreneurialism and business as well as labor. At my age I feel it after a long day working with the tools. I would like to slowly build up an invantory of rental properties that could supplement and ultimately supplant my electrical business income.  That was my plan from 1985 on, but life had its own plans for me. So better late than never!

I am a new member and have filled out my profile. What else, and where else, do I introduce myself?

Thanks!

Peter McCarthy

Chicago