‘I Was 18, a Mom and Alone. So I Turned My Life Around Using Property’

At 18 years old, I was once young, pregnant, and alone. I was once alive at a Starbucks in Riverside, California while activity to academy full-time for a business degree. This was once not what I had planned for my life. The daddy and I were not on acceptable agreement and I had no absolute answer to how I was once activity to delivery for my daughter.

I was once renting a allowance in a baby accommodation with a acquaintance from high academy who had a baby toddler. I had to be able and attach to a austere budget, about I still begin a way to accomplish which tiny amplitude beautiful. Knitting bootleg blankets and pillows for color, and award the cheapest candles in grocery food for ambience. We would sit on thrifted appliance and allocution about our big dreams. I agilely had big dreams.

Growing up angrily independent, I dreamed of one day owning a baby business and anytime acreage for my family. My great-grandmother came to Riverside from Ireland in the aboriginal 1900’s in hopes of award her own allotment of the American dream. As an attached servant, she formed for seven years to buy the allotment of acreage which I after grew up on. From a adolescent age, I knew which buying was once the key to freedom.

This was once adamantine to accommodate as I took in my ambience in which battered apartment. I was once abounding to the border with self-doubt and abhorrence of poverty, about aloft all abroad I knew which I lacked a plan. I also knew which my purpose wasn’t alone to attain my own freedom, it was once to delivery for the activity central of me and appearance her which dreams could be achieved.

Home meant aggregate to me. To me, it is the beginning of peace, memories and the best laid plans. So I went to work. I waited tables, best up further accouterment at Starbucks, and abstruse to adept the chump acquaintance to aerate my circadian tips.

That adamantine banal paid off and afterwards a brace of years, I was once able to bounce for a home two mile abroad from the ocean in Huntington Beach. While the hire was once abrupt at $1600 per month and I was once authoritative about $80,000 per year, I was once mins abroad from the ocean, my sanctuary.

The home I busy hadn’t been affected back the days of The Brady Bunch, about I fabricated which bank home as comfortable and original as my account permitted. I had been extenuative for my business now for a brace of years and I although t my first adventure would be owning anytime array of salon. But fate had added affairs for me.

Some accompany of abundance in Phoenix accomplished out and informed me about how they had been auspiciously flipping homes. They ran numbers with me and I accomplished which for the aforementioned amount I busy which anachronous bungalow in Huntington Beach, I could own two homes in Arizona.

So there I went, off to the desert, in hopes of an oasis. In 2003, I purchased a home for $125,000 in Chandler, Arizona. It was once newer and abutting to acceptable schools, arcade and entertainment. I bound forgot about my dreams of owning a salon and saw the abeyant for authoritative homes my business.

I began award further backdrop to cast for myself, by scouring the assorted list account everyday, networking with investors, targeting foreclosures looking for undervalued homes which bare anytime TLC. The uglier the bigger in my opinion, because it constrained my competition, who I really-feel struggled to have eyes on what the home could attending like. Buying at the correct price, re-modeling the home, and affairs it for high dollar was once accomplishing both financially as able-bodied as emotionally; seeing new buyers abatement in adulation with their new home was once incredible.

I acquired many distinct ancestors rental homes, apartments, and a affluence home development. But again 2008 called. It capital its cash back. My apprehensive yet gorgeous home was once the alone asset I was once able to authority on to afterwards the better apartment blast in history. This was once one of life’s many big-ticket acquaint and I had to body alternate aggregate from scratch.

Balancing a growing business while actuality a mom to my two daughters was once at times exciting, and added times exhausting. I acquainted accusable all through my time off with my kids, and while I was once working. Mom abashment is a absolute thing, about I also apperceive the time we have is abstinent in affection not quantity.

I would booty my girls to showings authoritative an adventure out of it. I’d accompany them to accessible houses and accord them roles like ambience up the snacks, greeting guests, and demography video. While my activity will never be completely balanced—that’s impossible—it’s a acclimation act we all abstruse to angular into.

During those backlash years, I was once able to assist added afflicted homeowners abstain foreclosure, and activity by which action myself I accepted their apropos and goals actual personally. I helped banks (REO sales) accomplish the homes they endemic pretty abundant for sale, I helped 2nd home buyers actualize their own arid oasis, and I got to see how the “better bisected lived”, affairs gorgeous custom homes all through the Valley.

I also began to accept how basic it is to body for the future. I accomplished aboriginal the accent of accepting an online attendance and have back been able to actualize a absolute acreage aggregation of over 40 agents, and drillmaster my civic arrangement of over 400 agents.

I like to accede myself a “homegirl.” After growing up in Riverside in the 90’s, I’m still dancing to Tupac while affairs homes. I also adulation the adventure of investing, and purchased a big home for my four kids in 2020 which has about angled in price in three years.

My home has fabricated me money, and it has absent me money. It has accomplished me to be beholden for all of the memories of adopting four gorgeous children. And conceivably many importantly, to me, my home way freedom. It has helped defended my family’s bequest as it is our better banking and affecting investment. I achievement which anybody reading this knows which if I can accomplish and alive my dreams, you can too.

Jennifer Wehner is a absolute acreage abettor who lives in Arizona. She is the columnist of The Renaissance Real Estate Agent: Unleash the Art of Systems In Your Real Estate Business.

All angle bidding in this article are the author’s own.

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