All Forum Posts by: Jay Johnson

I realized in February of 2011 that my ladder was leaning against the wrong financial building. Sooooo, I started to use my savings, refinancing my personal home, and taking out my IRA's and 401K money through the course of a little over a 3 year period and each time I took out that money, I took out enough to put 20% down on cash flowing San Diego single family condos. We averaged between $25,000-$30,000 for each down payment. If you know anything about San Diego Real Estate, it has tremendous appreciation potential. In 2011 when we started investing, we were stealing properties with excellent cash flow by short sales and REO. Our original goal was to replace lost W2 earnings, that I realized was occurring. I simply wanted to replace about $12,000.00 in W2 earnings I was fearful of losing in 2012. We then over the course of a 2-3 year period had accumulated 10 dirt cheap condos. In about the beginning of 2014 something miraculously started to occur. My Condos started to appreciate wildly. Many doubled in value as of today. I being a teacher here in San Diego for a Catholic School and a Community College too, am I life long learner and from 2011-present have soaked up so much information from experts in the area of creating wealth through real estate, realized my return on equity was at a minuscule 3%. That was unacceptable. We also started pooling our money together in my family and started in the beginning of 2015 to buy high cash flowing single family in Ohio. We have 8 right now in Ohio. We loved the cash flow alone.

Then, here is the real kicker. Upon all my learning and investigation, I found out, that all this cash flow was tax deferred and it really blew my mind. Thirty years in the rat race and in a few years if I play this right, I could surpass all W2 earnings with cash flowing rental real estate. Then, I realized if I take one or two pricey San Diego Condos and do a 1031 exchange, I can buy a million dollars worth of Multifamily Apartment complexes, with no money out of pocket. When I realized I can trade $8,000.00 tax deferred cash flow per year in for approximately $30,000-$40,000 per year in Ohio, where I have my other single family, already with a property manager I trust, I was all in. Soooo, now fast forward to Aug 4th of 2015, and yes, I have control of over $4,000,000.00. That includes 2 personal residences valued at over $1,100,000.00 in equity combined, 5 condos in San Diego, valued currently at $1,500,000, 8 single family in Ohio valued at $300,000, those have no mortgages. Also, I have 3 apartment complexes in Ohio valued at $1,600,000 appraised value this month. Soooooo, when adding, I come up with $4,500,000 in total real estate. The 8 Ohio single family properties we paid cash for. That is $300,000 in value for single family in Ohio. $600,000 equity remains in my 5 San Diego Condos, and $450,000.00 down payment money for the three Apartment Complexes in Ohio, Sooooooooo, the total net worth is about $2,000,000,00. My success is primarily due to buying low in San Diego and riding the wave,. The real X factor is moving dead equity into higher cash flowing properties. Specifically, Apartment Complexes. I love the control this gives me to increase NOI.

Thus, the banks say I have increased the NOI, increasing the value of the complex. Two years later, 1031 exchange and use all that appreciation to buy a bigger complex and do this again and again. Defer and increase deferred cash flow. Keep repeating this process until you die and your kid or kids inherit at a stepped up basis.

This all was due to investing in San Diego real estate.  Get this.  It was all before Warren Buffett came out and said, if he had management and systems to match he would buy over 150,000 single family. 

People here thought I was making a big mistake. Why buy when it is sooooooo low. They said property values will never go up like that again. I was buying for cash flow at the time. Appreciation just happened. I recently heard that people with low 600 credit scores and under 600 credit scores are getting loans again. Based on history, California will be the first to have prices Real Estate prices to escalate rapidly and also the first to plunge rapidly. I will sell all my pricey San Diego rental property in the next 12-15 months. We should be at an unsupportable peak at that time. 

That means not enough high paying jobs to support that price level. I see soooooooo many million dollar or greater homes out here it would make your head spin. Those same homes were going for $700,000.00 or less 4 or 5 years ago.

Regardless, without us slowly purging our IRA and 401K, this never would have happened. By January 1st, we should have $144,000 cash flow per year and we still have 5 rental properties in San Diego that we will trade in by 1031 exchange in the next 12-15 months. Right now, I am 1031 exchanging a condo I puchased for $120,000 in 2012, that is currently cash flowing approximately $5000.00 a year for a 12 unit in Euclid, Ohio that should cash flow at least $15,0000 a year. I should be able to increase that to at least $20,000-$25,000 in the next 2-3 years.

The plan is to continue this business strategy and in 7 or 8 years time have approximately $50,000,000.00 in total worth of all Real Estate. Also our net worth will be approximately $16,000,000.  

If you reach for the stars, you may not get there. However you may grab a handful of clouds. Certainly, you won’t grab a handful of mud!!

Swanny

Isn’t life grand!!

REPLY 

@Account Closed Thanks for taking the time to drop that wealth of information on me. Most of what you mentioned is truly invaluable. I have tried working with wholesalers in my area that I've met at meetup's and different real estate clubs. However, I've yet to come across someone who's willing to take on a protégé. Even one willing to working for close to nothing. Maybe they fear I'll take leads away from them or something. While the market in San Diego is pretty competitive I believe there is still plenty of deals ot go around for those willing to work for it. I am currently working with a guy out in Las Vegas who is open to taking me on as an apprentice. Again thanks for the advice.