04/19/2026
My Real Estate Investing Story
I grew up in a construction-based family. My dad and brother were involved in building, and my mom handled payroll and worked as a realtor before retiring. I was raised around hard work, construction, and real estate, but while most of my family had a work-for-someone-else mindset, I always wanted to build something of my own.
A major turning point for me was reading Rich Dad Poor Dad and other investing books like Bigger Pockets and self-development books. They changed how I looked at money, business, and wealth. I became focused on ownership, leverage, and creating income-producing assets instead of just trading time for money.
My journey really started when I bought my first house for $25,000. I lived in it while rehabbing it, and about 10 years later sold it for $94,000. During that time, the company I worked for shut down, and I found myself without a job. I rented that house out and moved into my parents’ basement for about a year and a half while attending IT tech school. After that, I got a job with Sprint and moved back into my house.
By then, I was thinking differently. I bought a house in Deepwater, Missouri for $8,400 and completed a full rehab. While working on it, a woman around the corner asked if I bought houses because she was about to lose hers to the bank. I bought that house for $20,000, and both became rental properties. Then I bought another house in Windsor for $35,000. While rehabbing that one, the neighbor asked if I wanted to buy his house too, so I bought it for $32,000.
What made my path different is that I was doing a lot of the work myself. Over the years I learned how to frame walls, lay tile, hang sheetrock, and do trim work. I enjoyed getting my hands dirty and seeing a property transform through my own effort.
I also learned early how to use leverage. I was not buying these houses with piles of cash. I used equity from one property as collateral to buy the next. That let me keep acquiring properties and slowly build my portfolio without using much of my own money. A big reason I started investing was because I got tired of being laid off and having corporations control my future. I wanted more control over my own life. At the same time, I’ve kept my IT career because it provides steady income and health benefits until real estate fully replaces it.
Later, I kept growing. After being laid off from Sprint, I moved to Atlanta in 2010 for another IT opportunity. In 2011, I bought a bank foreclosure for $112,000 and lived in it while rehabbing it. During that time, I also joined REI meetup groups to network, learn from other investors, and sharpen my knowledge.
In 2016, I rented a building and invested about $45,000 rehabbing it into a hair and nail salon with my partner. Two years later, I bought the neighboring turnkey tanning salon for $18,000. But in 2020, COVID shut both businesses down and it became a major financial loss. That was one of the toughest setbacks I’ve faced.
Even so, I kept going. In 2020, I bought an auction house online in Clinton, Missouri for $32,000, put about $30,000 into the rehab, and later sold it for $93,000. That project was different because I managed it remotely and never lifted a hammer on that one. Around the same time, I was laid off again because of COVID, but I got another IT opportunity with the State of Virginia, which required me to move there.
Before leaving Georgia, I sold the foreclosure house I had bought for $112,000 for $313,000. Then I bought a house in Virginia sight unseen for $260,000 and put another $18,000 into rehabbing it. In 2023, I moved back to Clinton to be closer to my parents. I sold my Virginia house for $338,000 and bought an estate-sale house in Clinton for $260,000 that is now worth around $325,000.
Since moving back to Clinton, I’ve continued buying rentals, flipping properties, and purchasing a storage facility. I’m not done yet.
My bigger goal is to create enough passive income and cash flow to eventually walk away from my full-time IT career and do real estate full-time. I recently got my real estate license so I can help other people buy and sell homes and teach them how to invest. Real estate has become more than a business to me. I love the freedom it can create and the long-term wealth it can build for future generations, especially for my daughter.
Right now, I still need my IT career because of the health insurance while I continue rehabbing my own health after a spinal cord injury in 2018. That injury changed my life, but it did not stop my vision.
One of the things I enjoy most is that real estate is something I get to do with my family. My dad helps on projects, my brother acts as the GC on my flips, and my mom still loves looking at properties with me, sending me deals, and helping with finances and bookkeeping. In many ways, real estate has become more than investing. It is part of our family legacy.
I’ve used the BRRRR strategy early on, but right now flips provide better cash flow. I often buy with cash and refinance through a local bank I have a relationship with. I also like pulling a line of credit on a property instead of refinancing at a higher rate. That gives me flexibility for cash deals, rehabs, and growth.
I’m still building, still learning, and still pushing forward. This is not the end of my story. It’s only the middle.
