How it all began

The purpose of this blog is to detail my endeavors into real estate from the beginning.  When I entered into the world of real estate, I did not have anyone to talk to with experience in buying and selling real estate.  I didn't have a mentor.  I didn't have any experience in real estate buying and selling.  My parents were not rich, they were average.  I always had a roof over my head and food on the table, but we did not live a life of luxury.  I would say my childhood was very average with no special advantages.  I went to college and got a good job that pays decent money.  All of this happened before I even thought about real estate.  I wish I had known when I was 18 what I know now.  But hey, it's never too late!

So how did this all start?  As with many individuals like myself, it all really started with Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.  Someone recommended this book to me.  I read this book in 2004 and I really wish I had read it sooner.  If you have read this book, good for you, if you haven't, please go buy it now or borrow it from someone!  It was written in 1999 but the message applies today.  I won't elaborate here, but if you have read it, you're off to a great start.

So after reading that book, I was hooked.  I immediately started reading as many books as I could.  Please visit my Book's I've Read page to see all the books I've read.  I'm constantly adding to it.  I didn't really have a lot of cash to begin investing in anything so I decided to start with the same thing everyone who wants to embark into a career in real estate investing should do.  Increase my financial intelligence.  I don't care what anyone says, until you have a solid level of financial intelligence, you won't be as successful as you can be.  Most likely you won't be successful at all.  A solid financial intelligence includes knowing how money works, understanding basic accounting, understanding real estate terminology, and understanding how to analyze any deal (real estate or otherwise).

So when I read this book in 2004, I changed my entire outlook on money.  I immediately started saving what I could so when I was ready to invest I would have some capital.  There are other ways to get capital but I wanted to start this venture with my own money, but whatever method you choose, everything I talk about still applies.  I spent the next 2 years reading books, studying financial websites, and learning general accounting practices.  I have a full time job so my time was limited to pretty much the evening and weekends.  I also have a family which limited my time even more.

I want to make sure the record is clear.  I did have some small advantages that others most likely do not.  My father is a real estate appraiser.  But before you think that was a big advantage, he was just an appraiser.  He has never bought nor sold real estate with his own money.  My brother went to college and then worked for my father for a few years as an appraiser before deciding appraising wasn't for him.  He recently (2013) took a job working for another real estate company that buys and sells hotels in Memphis.

Wait, did he say OUR holdings?  Yes, I did.  In 2006, I had a long talk with my father and brother.  I told them what I wanted to do and my father was also thinking along the same lines.  He was consistently running across great deals and was tired of watching others snatch them up.  My brother was still in college but is very intelligent so I wanted to make sure he was involved.  We decided to go into business together and form an LLC for the purpose of real estate investing.  First, we had to build up capital. Since I had already started to build up capital, I had a decent chunk to begin funding.  My father and I both put in $2,500 and my brother put in $2,500 later once he was able.  At first, since real estate was expensive (pre-2007), we decided to invest our capital in the stock market to see if it would grow (it did not).

So we open opened up a stock account and put most of our money into it.  We also each contributed money monthly to the account.  Long story short, after about 1.5 years, we lost a little money (thanks to the crash of 2007-2008.  In 2009, we took all the money we had out and decided to buy our first property.  And that's pretty much the story of how our company began.  The point to note here is we built up capital from 2006 to 2009 before we made out first purchase in 2010.  I also kept reading and researching and increasing my financial education (which I never plan on stopping) at the same time.