When I bought my first property, that was the
most exciting and nerve wracking time of my life.
But I do feel like my story will help others see
what's possible and hopefully inspire others
to take action and control their life and get
on the path to be financially free.
If I feel uncomfortable or I feel fear, that means
I'm learning. And that's what I felt when I bought
my first property.
I did not let fear take control of my actions.
My name is Karen Vij.
I'm 33 years old.
I make $183,000 and I live in Chicago.
This is not a get rich quick scheme.
This is a long term investment.
There's some months that you're going to make a lot
of money. There's some months you're going to
break even, and there's some months that you're
going to lose money.
In my enterprise, I average around $15,000 per
month and have a portfolio worth over $3
million. One thing that was instilled in our
family was to secure your future by making money.
My parents are traditional in a sense.
They always had a focus on wanting their kids to
have an education and secure a 9 to 5 job.
I've always had that in my brain.
I've always wanted to be number one.
I wanted to win. I wanted to use as much of my time
as possible to make as much money as possible
that I could. The biggest thing I've splurged on
recently is spoiling my baby with new clothes.
I do have some credit card debt because of the
newborn. There's been a lot of unexpected
expenses. However, I also chose not to pay off all
of it because I'm using the money to again, buy
more assets.
I use my line of credit strictly for the business.
I either use them for any upcoming expenses that
were not expected, or I use them to buy further
assets. I have low monthly expenses because
one of the perks that I have in my job is I do get
a company car which covers gas and insurance.
The other perk is I get a company phone.
I absolutely love debt, but I'll say I only like
good debt. You have to use it properly.
Good debt is debt that you have a strategy for.
Good debt is when you use the debt for the purpose
of generating future accelerated profits and
income. I have $100,000 cash that I'm using to buy
up more property when the price is right.
I also have this $100,000 sitting in a high interest
savings account, generating over 5% of
almost risk free interest.
I do take advantage of my 401 K.
I save over 10%.
However, my long term strategy is to buy up as
much real estate as possible, and that's the
strategy I'm executing.
I realized that the houses that we were
renting were all charged per room.
It wasn't a charge for the whole house.
The landlord was charging per room, and when I did
the math, I realized that by charging per room, you
could actually accelerate your gains compared to any
other real estate option.
I decided to find the places that were as close
as possible to colleges and universities.
We created a one year co-op because I knew that
this would be a great opportunity for me to save
and make money during school, and in that time
frame, I was able to save about 30 to $40,000 in
that first year. Most people only do like a year
maximum, but I decided to do the second year.
That helped me. Like that's what kind of got me
that extra savings for the down deposit.
The first one that I bought was in Hamilton,
Ontario. I chose properties outside of
Toronto due to price and familiarity with where I
went to school. I got into student rentals
because of a few things.
Number one, because you can charge per room.
That gives you an opportunity to generate
higher profits.
Number two is steady demand and steady stream
of tenants. You're always going to have demand for
that house because colleges and universities
don't shut down.
And number three, a lot of people think that one
of the negatives is the high turnover because of
the shorter term leases.
That is true.
But that is also the opportunity for higher
gains, because you can now readjust your rent to
the current market levels.
For me, the strategy is to buy now, hold forever.
Because when the property is paid off, all of the
rent coming in will be 100% profit.
Real estate, to me, is a long term investment to
build generational wealth.
You're making equity through appreciation and
you're also accelerating your cash flow.
Combining those two together can help you
build real, sustainable wealth.
I was also surprised by the volume of calls, so I
had to learn very quickly to set the right
expectation with the tenants, and also learn to
prioritize and balance all the calls coming in
and make sure that the emergencies were taken
care of first.
I had to learn to stay calm and put things into
perspective. Otherwise, this business could drive
you crazy, right?
Moving to Chicago has been an absolute highlight
for our lives.
We love the city.
There's so much to do.
We love the food.
There's so many things to try and the opportunity to
develop and grow.
Our career here has been phenomenal.
Having a newborn has sparked even more
motivation and drive in my life.
I want to build a life that we love for my
family, and I also want to show my daughter that
anything in life is possible if you put the
work into it. There's always going to be someone
that's got the bigger house, got a better car,
you know, smarter than you.
But that's your opportunity to to learn.
So now I don't take things personally.
I take every scenario, every failure as a
potential learning experience.