Re: Anybody retire early around here? - Posted by Brian_wa
Posted by Brian_wa on May 20, 2007 at 18:46:19:
Here’s how I did it.
Started learning real estate about 5 years ago. bought a couple of houses soon afterwards. Continued to study up until about 3.5 years ago and then became a full time investor. That was the beginning of 2004.
The first year, 2004, I didn’t do much. Flipped one deal and made 20k right away and then wasn’t able to do anything else until around late of that year when I bought another house subject-2.
Thing started rolling in March of 2005, after I sold that sub-2 for 30k in profit. From then until end of 2005, I bought about 9 more properties. Sold 2 and made about 50k in profit late 2005. I kept the rest and got a couple of HELOCS out of them.
In 2006, bought 15 houses. I fixed, flipped a few, and wholesaled a few along with selling a couple of the houses I bought in 2005. Also got 6 HELOCS in place. 4 in my name and 2 in my gf’s name. The total of all 6 HELOCS came to like 550k. Also was able to borrow about 200k from my gf’s family.
I try to not borrow private money because I didn’t want to pay too many points. I’d buy houses using conventional loans. Being a loan officer truly helped. Whenever I buy, if it’s in my name, I’d use 20% down using money from my gf’s line of credits. If it’s in her name, I’d use the money from my HELOCS as downpayment.
2007 is a little different. I didn’t want to own anymore properties until I get rid of a couple of the ones I accumulated in 2005 and 2006. So I started wholesaling these newly acquired properties. So far I got rid of 2 of them. One for 15k in profit and the other for 32k in profit. I’m waiting to close on 3 other ones as well for a good amount of profit on each.
So this year I’ve gotten about 7 deals and also working on 5 other good leads. I seriously need to get rid of at least 3 of the houses that I bought since 2005 but it’s hard after building good relationships with my tenants.
I do not want to flip all the deals that I found in 2007 because I just don’t want to pay so much uin taxes. Now I own about 16 houses with a good amount of equity in each.
Guess how old I am now. I just turned 30 in February.
Watching pennies is just too time consuming and traditional. It’s a nice idea but also just too conservative and restrictive. I don’t try to be extravagant but I’d buy whatever it takes to make my daily life better and more enjoyable. For instance, I hire people to do my landscaping, cleaning my house, cook for me and my gf. My time is too valuable to do these $10/hour activities.
I don’t watch my account everytime I go out there and buy something nice but I truly don’t find material possessions as something important. I don’t buy fancy, 2007 cars but do own a 2003 Lexus (bought it about 1.5 years ago) and still live in the 1200SF house that I bought as my first investment house ever.
I do like massages and have one every 2 weeks. It’s good for the body and the mind. For only $60 each time.
Mean while, I continue to find good deals and still study real estate like crazy each day. Now I’m focusing mainly on short sale because once I know this technique well, my “deal plate” will always be full of deals.
My gf doesn’t work. I think she’s way too spoiled. Oh well… Life is meant to be enjoyed you know.
So what’s the secret? Know the ins and outs of real estate investments. Go out there and get a lot of good deals on your plate and do it enough that you’re 100% confident you’ll be able to get as many deals as you can handle anytime you want to.
Am I lying about all this? Well, a couple of creonline members here know me personally…
Brian
That’s nearly the time I used to spend commuting!