Ever since I first met my wife in 2011, she had already begun chatting with me about real estate and urging me to invest while the housing market was still reeling. She comes from a family of real estate investors and she herself had already accumulated years of landlord experience. I always had a strong interest in real estate, but more in the way a young boy might have an interest in exotic car collections — I really enjoyed reading and studying about the market, but was never planning to actually purchase investment property.
Finally in mid-2013, as we discussed her exit strategy from the corporate world, she convinced me to take the plunge. We started our REI company with the idea that she would have rental income to support her transition to self-employment and other opportunities in real estate would be available once she relocated to Jacksonville.
Opportunities were indeed abundant and we did a little bit of everything. We purchased bank-owned foreclosures. We purchased from wholesalers. We purchased listed properties with realtors. We purchased through third-party online auction sites. We bought vacant lots. We bought condemned houses for their lots. We rehabbed, remodeled, or renovated all kinds of properties and fixed them for rental, for flip to other investors, or for flip to owner-occupants. We have purchased “subject-to” (the mortgage). We have sold on land contract. We have purchased condos, single family homes, small multi-family homes, and commercial retail property. We did each type of investment first with our own money, and later as the sponsor of a partnership or in joint ventures. We have made private loans secured by real estate. We have purchased shares in large crowd-funded development projects. Pretty much the only things we didn’t do were large multifamily, county courthouse auctions or buying and selling notes. But that certainly wasn’t for lack of trying…we vetted a number of opportunities and bid on a lot of courthouse auction properties, but nothing quite worked out.
Now, at the beginning of 2019, along with our financial partners, we have amassed a rental portfolio of several dozen residential units, a 10,000 sq ft commercial retail property, completed over a dozen flips, over 30 rehabs and one new construction. Our investments have spanned across the markets of Jacksonville, FL, St Petersburg, FL, Indianapolis, Chicago and the Washington DC area.
It hasn’t been a smooth ride, but overall it has been an exciting time that has allowed me to inch closer to financial independence while exploring some long-established personal goals and passions. I relished the opportunity to literally invest in my hometown and contribute to the transformation of several neighborhoods. Every area that we focused on back in 2013 is booming now. And I finally had a legitimate excuse to create lots and lots of spreadsheets…to compare markets, analyze housing by neighborhood, evaluate individual listings, and predict future appreciation. As an urban planning enthusiast I enjoyed researching public policy, closely following all development news, private sector growth, and economic and population trends in each of our potential markets.
My wife left the business in 2017 to pursue her long-time dream of being a teacher, and I am mostly transitioning out of the business over the next few months. I will continue to manage aspects of our rental portfolio, and happily share advice and consult regarding the overall process, asset classes, joint venture agreements, markets, submarkets, and so forth, but I believe the timing is right for me to focus most of my attention on new endeavors. I can envision returning to active real estate investing sometime in the future, but for now I will satisfy my real estate urges by sharing my thoughts and observations with you here.
