Cheryl Packham

I started my real estate investing life by becoming an accidental landlord. In 2008, right before the big crash hit Wyoming, I purchased a townhouse to be my primary residence. I was told I would have a job there for at least two years and upon consulting, family and friends said to me that "Real Estate can never be a bad investment." I didn't know what that meant at that time. Since there were no rentals in the area, I made the plunge and purchased the townhouse. I was relocated six months later. I was in a predicament because my townhouse had decreased in value by 50%. Cursing all those people who had told me real estate could never be a bad investment, I found a friend who would rent it from me and figured I would deal with it later. I was losing money every month and had no idea what I had gotten myself into. When I met my now husband, he had just gone through a divorce. He was left with the house as his responsibility. I was an "expert" on real estate at this point because I had watched all the shows on HGTV, so I told him that we need to renovate and sell it for a profit. Well, that didn't go the way we had planned. After maxing every credit card I had and fixing the house up, it wouldn't sell. It didn't even get an offer. So we decided to live in it until the market came back. It didn't. And then he was forced to relocate for his job. So we turned it into a rental as well. I did not know much about real estate (even though I thought I did) or being a landlord before doing this. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way. In 2012, I decided to attend a seminar on real estate. I was curious to learn more about real estate and what I needed to know to be a more successful property owner. I learned at this school what people meant about "real estate can never be a bad investment." It can be a bad investment, however, if done right and creating the right opportunities, real estate has more potential to be a good investment than some other types of investment. There are not many companies that I buy stock in that I can go in and do some repairs and make the stock rise; however, I can do that to my real estate holdings. Things started to make sense, and that was when I realized that I wanted to pursue real estate investing. I previously worked as a Marketing Consultant for a Real Estate Rehab Specialist Company. I have learned a lot about researching properties, direct marketing, and finding deals. Through this opportunity, I was able to buy two houses for CHEAP. I renovated one and turned it into a Cash Cow, leaving the other untouched as the numbers to work. I acquired nearly an acre of land next store. I removed the flood plain from my husband's house and we could finally sell at a reasonable price. We house hacked another house and then another. We bought our current home as an investment, and it has doubled in price since we purchased it. We are bootstrapping our way to financial freedom, and we learned a lot of lessons the hard way. I am here to help if you are getting started and have questions. As we were both veterans, I am also very familiar with the VA Loan process as well and happy to answer questions on that as well.