I know that fear is not from God, but I am walking away from a profession that I have been in now for the last 16 years. About three years ago, I sat at my desk wanting an opportunity to create freedom of time, wealth, happiness and, more importantly, choices in my life. I asked for direction for these things and I was led to real estate investing.
Immediately I signed up for a four-week crash course to obtain my real estate license. I joined a small real estate office part-time, keeping my day job. After riding around buyers who couldn’t decide what house to buy, I said there’s got to be a better way.
Early one Saturday morning I was watching TV when Carlton Sheets came on an infomercial about his No Money Down program. Later I was talking to my brother about it, and he told me that he had already ordered the program and it was sitting in his bookcase collecting dust. I begged him to let me borrow it. After studying the program, I decided to buy my own program with the updated materials.
The next year, my husband and I purchased our first rental properties. During that year we purchased a total of four homes. We had very little cash flow.
I don’t remember how I found CRE Online but thank God I did! I remember studying all of the Forum posts and How-to Articles. There was one name that I notice kept appearing with a lot of knowledge on financing real estate. I posted a note and he responded and offered his telephone number. So I called Ed Garcia.
We discussed my rentals, and he told me to sell them. I needed the cash. This year, I sold three of my rentals and netted $63,000 after expenses. One of those three was our first rehab property we purchased with $1,000 from a motivated seller. We assumed the mortgage held by a private lender (individual). Later he took a discount on the note. We netted $38,000 from that one sale.
We attended the CRE Online Convention in Atlanta and purchased more materials and met some great people. As a result of the convention and materials we purchased, we realized that rehabbing was the road for us. We have since purchased three more REO and rehab properties. One sold netting $28,000 in May and the other two are under contract now. They should net $56,000 in the next 30 days.
We wanted to eliminate as much of our debt as possible, so we have paid off most of our expenditures (cars, credit cards, etc.).
We still need to pay off a few more things before we will only have our mortgage and our rental mortgages. Yes, we still buy rental properties with a stronger cash flow.
We don’t have a lot of money saved for this big step I’m taking, but I feel the need to start next year full speed ahead in real estate investing. Pray for our success as we feel some fear. But we know God is good and did not bring us this far just to leave us now. Again thank you Lord, Ed, and the CRE Online Family. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. God Bless!