I started investing in real estate not like most people have. I tell people today that I started using the kitchen door of real estate investing and by not knowing what was in the kitchen  “I’ve got burned too many times.”

I learn real estate the worst way any person should learn. I learn through the “school of hard knocks.”  Today, I am an advocate for real estate investments associations because of two things:

1) Through real estate investment association you can learn at a fraction of the cost that is when you make mistakes (and I certainly have my share of it!)

2) Because of networking you will find that within the association, you will be able to reach your financial goals a lot quicker. Real estate investment associations have individuals that are wholesalers, others are suppliers and vendors, lawyers, CPA’s, Bankers, Private lenders, etc.  If you heard me speak before you will know that I rely on a team of people to make things happen in my real estate career as well as my financial well being.

Back to how I started. In my last semester of my senior year in college at Texas A&M university, I needed only 3 semester hours to graduate with an engineering degree, but as a Pell Grant student myself, I needed a total of 12 Credit hours to get my full grant.  To do that and finish college I needed 9 more credit hours. I talked to a friend of mine and he suggested me to take them in real estate and to get the real estate agents license.  “This was a sure way to get part-time income, selling real estate and getting a commission.” Needless to say, I went for it.  In one of the classes they thought us about dealing and selling VA foreclosures (from the agents point of view). It was at that point that I saw the light! I realize that they way to make money was not as an agent but as an Investor, buying foreclosure properties from VA and renting them.

Before I graduated I bought my first VA foreclosure near Texas A&M, where my brother and I went for our undergraduate studies. My brother Alvin is three years younger than I am and he was still in college. So, we got the property and he became the property manager by default, and I became a landlord renting to college students by the room. In the following years several other properties around Texas A&M campus.

Sounds like a peachy story, …but the real estate market went south few years after my first acquisition, because of the oil industry crash in the mid 80’s. I went through some hard times and even lost that first house that I bought (This was my first lesson in what can happen when you buy property almost nothing down and at market prices).  I lost the first house, but I was able to hang on to the other ones.  In 1989 while the real estate industry was under a major correction, in Texas, thousands of properties where foreclosed every month. Alvin already had his real estate license and we started buying foreclosed property right in the middle of the Texas real estate depression. We were able to buy houses with market values of $40,000-to-$50,000 for $8,000 to $15,000, most of them needs only cosmetic repairs.  People thought that I was crazy. 

Texas market got better and we started to cash out big times.  Then we got involved with small and mid-sized apartment complexes, condos and townhouses.  Then we started learning management and rehabbing the wrong way again.

In 1994 right when I was in the beginning of our growth I was introduced to the realty Investment club of Houston. There, I learn the right way to do things and one of my best mentors were found within the association, by networking with other investors like myself.

In two short years my business exploded. By 1996 we had over 600 units, 24 employees and 18 associates, and running 13 different entities and businesses, from realty agency to mortgage brokering, a construction company and a management company, in all we had everything you need in real estate investing with the exception of a Title Company (which I was already in the process of acquiring one) our Franchise was called “D Complete Real Estate Center.”  We were right in the middle of our growing pains. Not only we had over 5 ½ Million of portfolio property but also we were generating around Three million a year on Flip’s and we also had a full blown construction crew working on everything from new construction to rehabbing houses and apartment complexes.

We were definitely burning the midnight oil. The balance sheet was great, but the profit and loss statement were hurting due to lack of strong management and job losses.

Then I ask myself the question why?  Why am I doing all this sacrifices?

The answer to my question was financial freedom and wealth.  I took a hard look at our nightmare in progress and realize that I did not needed all of the things that we had created. I just needed much smaller well managed and balance portfolio of real estate holding.  From 1997-1999 we sold a big chunk of the portfolio and stop leaks on those properties that were draining our profit. We move to a different level, the level that I call “Freedom to Choose.”

Then after putting everything that was left into an automatic pilot, my family and I decided to take a sabbatical and enjoy the fruits of our labor by traveling the country for two years with our kids and no strings attached to do what we want!

“That my friend is Freedom.”