With 50 posts on this blog and a few years under my belt I figured it's time to revisit the purpose of this blog as I'm sure many folks aren't going back to the beginning to read it. We (My Dad, Brother, and I) bought our first property in 2010. Throughout my real estate journey, I've read many books, forum posts, articles, etc on real estate. Almost all of them were from people who were established investors (did it full time). I have a full time job outside of real estate and just do it in my spare time. What I failed to find was someone just like me who was going down the investing road and experiencing the same things I was. So in 2013, when I had ~5 properties, I decided to be that person for others. I'm what you'd consider an "Average Joe". I'm married, have a couple of kids, both myself and my wife work full time W-2 jobs. I did not come from money. I do well for myself but like most folks, I graduated college with student loan debt and no money. I scored a good job and would have been considered middle class when I first started my real estate journey. It took us 2 years to save enough to buy our first property (a sub-$100k SFR). The point of being that detailed is I want everyone to understand I didn't come from any money. I didn't grow up "poor" either but I earned everything I have in my life just like the majority of folks will have to do.
We've all read about how "easy" it is to invest in real estate. There are those out there who preach no/low money down, buying a $1M+ property as your first property, etc etc. But let's be honest, while all of what you read *IS* possible and some have done it with great success, that's just not reality for most people and it wasn't my reality. I'd love to create a snapchat, facebook, myspace, etc and make billions in just a few years but I'm also a realist (a very optimistic one). I love dreaming big and do so every day. I don't make all or nothing decisions when it comes to my money, but I'm not a tightwad either. I'm right in the middle. I'm also not a best selling author (maybe one day), nor have I written a book or anything outside of forum posts and this blog. I'm not a "guru". I didn't even have a mentor for real estate. I don't endorse anything (maybe one day) and I'm not paid anything by anyone for what I do in real estate (again, one day that's the goal, I do dream big remember?)
So if you haven't gathered by now, the whole purpose of this blog is to show the average person's journey with real estate so that those folks who are starting out, doing it on the side, and that only own a few properties (or 1 or none, etc) can at least have somewhere to go to see someone just like them. If you aren't into real estate, I'm sure this blog is boring, but hopefully someone somewhere will get something out of it. And also, I do keep this for myself as well. It's also a record of my journey that I can reflect back on as well. I just happened to make it public for others to see as well.
The last piece of all this is that since this blog is public, you won't often see personal details, company names, individuals names, or specific details in this blog. So if you see anything that is vague or not very detailed, don't think I'm leaving anything out that is crucial to the situation, I'm just leaving those personal details out. If there is something you want to know more about, just leave a comment and I can elaborate more if you feel I don't cover something in the detail you wanted. I also don't have all the time in the world to just write, so sometimes posts are just shorter because I'm short on time. No one pays me to do this :)
I hope you enjoy the blog and feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
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