I’ve been thinking about real estate investing for a few years now. I’ve known several people who had success with real estate. I first became interested in it seriously after seeing success that my friend Barry had with his properties in California. When I was living in New Orleans, I met one guy named David who was making a ton of cash from a handful of short-term rental properties he owned in New Orleans. I used to think that owning real estate meant that traveling would not be possible, but David told me and showed me that this was not true. He lives in Texas but his properties are all in New Orleans.
After talking to David I decided to start saving my investment cash for a rental property. I was already saving a portion of my gross income each paycheck for investments, but I was just putting it all into a non-retirement S&P 500 index fund. Which I have also read is an okay way to go, especially for a long-term, safe, low-maintenance investment that will return something like an average of 7% a year over the long term (thanks Mr. Money Mustache).
I decided that even if I have to live in one place for a year or two (surprisingly sounds like a long time for me, since I started working and moving around to different places in the country), that it would totally be worth it to get my real estate business established. And I would be living for free during that time, in my plan to buy a multi-family rental and live in one of the units. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger was saying in his autobiography Total Recall, when he bought his first rental property – an apartment building in Santa Monica, California – he went from paying $1300 a month in rent to living for free in an apartment that paid for itself from the first day. That’s a huge difference.
The prospect of saving/earning so much money through real estate is very exciting. Especially considering how quickly it’s possible to get started. My current savings goal is to have $30k saved up by June 2023. June 2023 is the month where I will own my rental property. In the words of my definite purpose, created with the help of Napolean Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich:
I will own a rental property that pays for its own mortgage by June 2023. I will work 5 hours a day at my web development career to be able to achieve this. I will have a budget and stick to it. I will keep an eye on the real estate market, looking at properties every day. I am so confident that I will achieve this – I can see the property and the money before my very eyes.
Omar Shishani
Listening to audiobooks for inspiration
I think listening to audiobooks is a great help and is something that has helped alot to inspire me, especially over the past few weeks. I listen to everything on around 2x speed, and listening to audiobooks that you love is a great way to put yourself on the same mental frequency as your heroes, or as authors that you look up to. Listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s autobiography has been extremely inspiring, and helped me to absorb lessons from his life much better than when I read the book several years ago. I never got through the whole book when reading it. However, when listening on audio, I’ve been able to go through the whole book 4 times in the past 3 weeks – all while cooking, doing laundry, or walking to the grocery store.
Schwarzenegger has been an inspiration for me for a long time, but listening to his audiobook has helped me not only to realize how valuable it is to work out every day, but also given me another role model for investing in real estate as well.
I am happy that I’ve been able to build a remote career as a web developer. It has opened many doors for me, and put me on great tracks in life that I’ve always wanted to be on: being able to learn every day while working, being able to travel easily, being able to make lots of money. I’m excited to be learning every day, and I’m also so excited to be able to purchase my first rental property next year. I’ve been thinking about buying the rental nearly every day for the past few months. I know that it’s going to be a great success, and the next step for me to reach a new level financially.