I first decided that I wanted to invest in real estate during my senior year of college. I was a finance major and had recently studied the “Discounted Cash Flow Method” which basically allows you to value any asset based on the amount of cash flow it generates. One night after class I was sitting around with a few of my friends, drinking Natural Light beers and listening to Led Zeppelin. Apparently inspired by the cheap beer and guitar solos, I pulled out my laptop and started running valuation calculations on different things, including the college rental that I lived in at the time with 7 other guys. I asked my roommates how much they paid in rent each month, then ran a valuation of our house based on the rent. I remember thinking Holy Shit! – If I owned this place it would pay me more than a lot of the jobs I could get with my business degree. The seed was planted.
It would be about 6 years before I took any action on my discovery. After college I went to law school and got a job as in-house counsel with a small but rapidly growing company. My company had an entrepreneurial environment, and I saw a great opportunity there. I started working my ass off trying to learn everything I could and climb the corporate ladder, and at age 29, I became the General Counsel and head of the legal department. Things were going well, and I really liked my job. I was constantly busy during this period and I kept telling myself, “one day I will buy a rental property”, but it seemed the time was never quite right.
Then in 2013, I finally bought my first investment property. Two weeks prior to the closing, my wife Kylie and I had our first child, and we had serious doubts about whether we should buy the property while we were learning how to be new parents. Once again, it seemed, the timing wasn’t quite right. But this time we decided to pull the trigger anyway, and we took our two-week-old son to the closing of our first investment property. I am so glad we didn’t wait!
After becoming a dad, I really wanted to be with my kids as much as I could while they were still little, and I started viewing my time through a different lens. A late night or a weekend workday never bothered me before, but now it meant that I would miss out on time with my kids, and I didn’t like it. I also had some great travel experiences with my family right around this time, and I began to think about how nice it would be to travel more often, something that is hard to do when you run a corporate legal department. I started to think about the real estate business in a bigger way, as a tool to replace my income so I could travel more and spend more time with my family.
As I started to think bigger about real estate, I learned that my Natural Light fueled epiphany back in college was just the tip of the iceberg of the full benefits that real estate investing can provide. Real estate spins off cash flow, it consistently appreciates in value, it has great tax benefits, and you can use other people’s money as leverage to grow. Once I saw this, I was changed forever, and I was going all-in on real estate.
I started building, but it was extremely slow and frustrating at first because I really didn’t know what I was doing, and I had no money. As it turns out, building a real estate portfolio is really hard, especially in the beginning. I have heard it described as a train getting started moving – a ton of energy at first with not much to show for it, but once you finally get going, your momentum carries you forward quickly without much additional energy required. This was my experience with real estate investing. Finally, I found a way to buy real estate that didn’t require much money, and started gaining momentum and I haven’t looked back from there.
As I write this article, a little over 7 years after purchasing my first property, Kylie and I now run the company as a team, and our business generates more income than Kylie and I made combined working as full-time professionals. We can run our business from anywhere, and it doesn’t require nearly the amount of time that our corporate jobs did, which means we can travel as much as we want, and we get to spend quality time with our two young kids during their formative years. It has also allowed me to have time to write this blog and pursue other interests that I wouldn’t otherwise have time for.
I love being a full time real estate investor. If you have ever thought about getting into real estate, my advice to you is to jump in. The time might never feel quite right, and you might just have to take the leap. One thing I know for sure is that if I can do this, anyone can do it. If you take the time to learn about real estate and build a solid foundation, save your money, and take action, you can become a full-time real estate investor too.
Chris Stanley 