Candace's Journey in Real Estate Journal Begins : )

Hi Everyone - I joined this site as a member some time ago now, I recently began
logging on more and reading many of the posts. Today, I decided it was time
to participate actively and I am happy and thankful to be doing so.
I live in Ohio with my husband and have a young adult son and daughter. I have
loved real estate for so long now. I grew up watching my dad work on his
rental properties and he was very Business Minded. At the age of 18 I was
ready to get my real estate license, however, I finally did at the age of 22. I dabbled at being a real estate agent, but got busy with life and family and started working a J-o-b - and got away from one of the career interests I really
was passionate about. I was miserable leaving my babies and driving to work
everyday. Meanwhile, I listened to tapes (yes before cds) on real estate investing and would dabble with the interest some more. Fast forwarding into
my 30's it was time - so I thought anyway! I got my books out and started listening to my tapes again and even reactivated my real estate license. My
wonderful and very supportive husband gave me his blessing and told me to give
my notice at my job - which in the worlds eyes was a very good State mngt. position - job. But I was so unhappy with that job - all I could think about was what I should be doing and knew I could do if I just put my heart and mind to it and most importantly trusted God to direct my steps. I got busy - by then, my
daughter was just starting college in another town - so we decided, "hey" I am
not going to pay for her to live somewhere - I will find a property for her to
live in and share with a couple of other students - who can make the mortgage pmt.
So after alot of searching I found the right property - and she moved in and so
did two other students who covered our expenses...Praise God - this was good!
Then, I started looking for more - so one day looking through the classifieds I
saw an ad that said - 2 cabins in woods - good income call this number. I did,
it was actually a cabin rental business, I knew nothing about this - I just
wanted to see if the numbers worked - and they did. So we purchased the cabins,
it took alot of paperwork and calling lendors - but we found a local bank that
said yes. We purchased the cabins and stayed BUSY for months - too busy, the
mistake I made was I thought we had to do everything ourselves - the cabins were
45 minutes away from us - for 10 months we did not have one opening on a weekend so, we were driving there constantly to clean and prepare them, we did have our
system workable by internet and phone though - so that helped a bunch - we had
a system to let our renters in - we charged their cc - and we never met not
one renter - we created such a good business - that after just over a year, another couple who were in the cabin rental business and loved it - wanted to
buy our cabins - I say YES - as we were burned out. We sold the cabins for a very
nice profit - gave them bookings in advance so they got money at closing themselves - we paid off our loan to the local bank and took our profit and found
a house - local to invest in. The banks were more apt to lend a couple of years
ago. So this local bank actually financed our next investment property plus the
cash we had on hand and we started in the buy, fix and sale business! Now, I am
looking at the clock and my husband has a softball game this evening, so I am
running out of time. But, I will say it has been a few years now and I just
completed my 14th property and have it sold already - again, I give God all the
Glory. There have been alot of learning experiences - so many and I now have
a crew that goes in with me - I show them what to do and they do it - the funnest
part is when the property gets to the final steps and I get to go in and stage.
I take lots of before and after pictures to encourage me. I have done these
house all in a little Village very close to home. So - yes, it is possible to
work in a small area. I actually put my Real Estate license back with the State,
because I was getting so many requests to list other peoples properties and didn't
have time to focus on that. Well, now I am getting them back out - finding I can
use them in some areas and it will be helpful to have them back out. As an
investor and having being a realtor it is all about disclosure I must add. One
of the reasons I am getting them back out is I was just offered a great opportunity and honor to oversee an 11 unit 55 and over condo project in our
small Village. I am so humbled and thankful, as I was offered this opportunity,
because of the reputation I have built of rehabbing very ugly properties and making them beautiful - thus, very much helping the local comps in this area when
I sale them. I will be overseeing as General Contractor the whole project, do I
know everything about this? Absolutely not, and I disclosed that - but I will
find out what I don't know by research and asking questions. The rest will come
by just "doing it" "start doing and stop thinking" as Dean just said on last
weeks call - I love that!