I get asked quite a bit about how I was able to get started in real estate investing
and why I chose real estate investing.
So I thought it would be fun today to share a little bit more of my story about how I
actually got started investing in real estate properties.
And this way you can see if you can relate to the ideas that I had
and the thoughts that I had and then decide for yourself,
if real estate investing would be something that you would want to do.
I am Tiffany Thomas with wealthytiffany.com
and I achieved financial freedom and became a millionaire.
If you're looking to do one or both of those things,
hit that like button and hit the subscribe button and we're going to dive right in.
I've mentioned this before on my channel, but I used to be a really big saver.
I would save a lot of my money but I wasn't so big into investing until later on.
I was taught by my parents at a young age to save my money and to pay my tithing.
So I got my first job in high school and I saved a significant amount of that money.
And I also spent some of that money as well.
I would go to lunch with my friends.
There was a Burger King nearby the high school,
so we would eat there quite frequently,
and I loved their chicken sandwiches. I don't know.
I don't eat that much anymore. So I don't know if they still have like,
their long chicken sandwiches. Comment below and tell me if you know what I'm talking about,
but I loved eating those. So yes,
I would go out to lunch with friends sometimes or I would buy a new shirt or a pair of shoes,
something like that, but I always saved a percentage of my income.
And I didn't really know what exactly I was saving for.
I just knew that I should be saving my money.
So I was. And then when I started to go to college,
I switched jobs and I was actually working as a secretary for a real estate agency.
It was a very small company, there were just two real estate agents that worked there.
And you would think that that is where the interest started for me investing in real estate,
but it didn't start there. I had no clue what I was doing there.
I didn't know anything about real estate and this is going to date myself,
but that is when the internet was pretty new.
So it was pretty hard to search
for how to be a real estate secretary because there just wasn't a lot of data on the internet yet.
Comment below and tell me if you remember when the internet was brand-new.
I worked at the real estate company for a very short time.
And then after that, I got an internship.
I was working for the Ogden city mayor.
So I was the mayor’s intern, that's right,
and then I had a few other jobs while I was attending college.
And while I was still in college, I was in my business classes and there was a guy that was in,
at least one of my classes, if not more of my business classes.
He was also studying business
and he is going to come into play later in the picture
and I was simply saving my money
and then when I actually got my career then I started making a lot more money.
So I ended up buying a truck,
which I loved, it was a Toyota Tacoma.
So I spent my money on that. That was a significant amount of money.
But I was still saving my money. I also set up a 401k
since that was an option at the company that I was working for.
But I invested the minimum amount to get their match
and I still didn't have a good concept of investing.
I knew I needed to make my money work for me.
But retirement just seemed
so far off that I didn't want to put a lot of money into my 401k
and I felt like I didn't need to be investing right now.
If only I could go back. There are a few things
I would definitely change and while I attended college,
I was still living at home which was super nice of my parents to let me do that.
But after I started my career, I knew it was time to move out.
I ended up renting a condo with one of my friends in Salt Lake.
That was closer to my work
and I was really glad that she was living with me so that we could split the expense of rent.
And when that lease was up, I moved to a place that was pretty nearby to where I was living
and I had roommates there as well.
And one of the roommates I had actually owned that place and I kept thinking,
she is smart. She owns the place and she is collecting rent from all of her roommates.
And that was kind of on the back of my mind.
And then that guy, that I knew in college a little bit, he ended
up moving to Salt Lake and we ended up going to church together. And he said,
oh, I remember you from the business class. And we started talking and became friends.
I come to find out, he owned his own place
as well and he had a roommate and the more I talked to him the
more I found out that he was even more successful with real estate.
He had multiple properties that he was investing in,
but I kept thinking, this guy is really smart and I can learn from him.
And that was what ended up happening. I actually first talked
to him about investing in the stock market.
We had actually done this little game that he had set up to invest in the stock market.
We all had a certain amount of money,
maybe a hundred thousand dollars to invest in the stock
market and there were a group of
us and we all chose individual stocks that we would invest
in for a certain amount of time
and then we could switch around our investments anytime we wanted
to but then at the end of the timeframe,
we were going to see who out performed everybody else.
I didn't end up winning that challenge and I don't think he did either,
but it was fun to kind of get a taste of the stock market and how it worked.
And I ended up buying my own stocks and setting up a Roth IRA.
So I had some money invested in the stock market,
not nearly as much as I should have,
or wish I would have, but I did have a little bit,
and if you're interested in hearing more about that side of things,
then comment below. And let me know. And I can create a video about that.
But after I had talked to him about stock market investing,
I decided I wanted to buy my own place
so that I could have roommates
and start collecting rental income
and I talked to him about real estate investing about buying my own place
and he was very willing to help me.
So that was super nice of him. I started looking
for a place to buy and it turns out that my roommate who owns the place that I was living in,
she got married and had moved out and they were moving to,
Texas. And she decided to sell her place.
So I ended up buying her place which worked out perfectly
because I didn't have to move
but now I owned the place that I was living in
and I kept the roommates that were already living there.
So they started paying me that rental income instead of someone else.
And yes, it was nerve-wracking to buy my own property because that is a lot of money.
That's a lot of debt that I'm going into and I just didn't know what would happen.
What if there was a fire or a flood?
Or things started to deteriorate in at that area that I was living in.
There were just so many unknowns, but I just kind of took a step back and thought,
Okay, if there's a fire that's why I have insurance.
If there's a flood same reason, that's why I have insurance.
And honestly, this was a really good location.
It is close to multiple freeways.
It's close to shopping. It's close to the Canyons.
So the location really wasn't an issue.
And then I also thought, well, what if I'm not able to find roommates,
but when I was looking for a place to buy, I wanted to purchase something that
I could still afford on my own if I needed to.
So that's part of the reason I chose the property that I did
because I could still afford that mortgage payment
and the HOA payment on my own if I couldn't find roommates,
but as time went on, I learned that it is pretty easy to find roommate
and that was partly because of the location.
It was a really good location and the house is really cute as well.
So, in the back of my mind, I knew what I was doing was a really good thing that it was helping
to make my money work for me. And I was also saving a lot of my income and not only that,
I was also spending my income,
I was going on different trips, traveling a lot.
I also purchased a lot of clothes that I didn't need,
but things were really good, but as I started to go along in life,
I started to think, I know I have too much money in my savings account.
I know, I need to invest that money.
I started looking at different options.
I talked to our 401K rep. at
my work and asked him what he thought I should do
and ended up signing up for a whole life insurance,
which is another story.
And I also set up a Roth IRA with his company.
So, I was investing my money but yet I still had a significant amount in savings.
So I talked to my friend who walked me through buying my first place because we were
still friends and I asked him more about real estate investing and he had said that,
it is a really good investment, that he was glad he was investing in real estate.
I also had a boss at the time who was also investing in real estate
and he was very successful with that.
They both had different approaches.
So I got information from both of them
and then took pieces from both of their processes
and created my own process for investing in real estate.
And I ended up purchasing a condo, a 2-bedroom 2-bath condo,
and that was just a rental property.
I wasn't going to move into that property,
but it was nice to have two different people to talk to about investing in real estate
and seeing their success and knowing that if they can do it,
so could I. When I was purchasing this condo this investment property,
this was in 2015 and the market was not
crazy yet and I put in an offer
and they came back with a counteroffer
and I decided to go up a little
bit but not meet their counteroffer and then they came back and said,
oh, we still want the counter offer and then I thought,
well, I don't really need this property. I'm sure there are other
properties that I can get that would still be good.
So I stuck with that second offer that I had given them
and they ended up coming back and saying okay don't give up on us.
We are thinking of accepting your offer
and they ended up accepting that offer
and so I went under contract and was able to purchase that condo.
And yes, this was also scary but honestly having already purchased one property.
It was easier to purchase a second property even though it was quite a bit later.
And this was strictly a rental property
and the condo that I purchased happened to be next door to where I used to live,
when I first moved to Salt Lake, so,
I kind of felt like it was meant to be.
I already knew that location really well,
and I knew the complex. Of course,
things can change over time
because it was about 10 years later when I purchased the second property,
but nonetheless, I knew it was a really good area.
And once again, I had thoughts about,
oh what if I'm not able to rent this property or if something happens,
but here's what it came down to.
I knew my money was sitting in a savings account not working for me.
And I knew that long term that would not be good
for me and I would not be happy by just leaving it in a savings account.
And so I took that jump. I purchased that property that rental property
and what made it easier is that it was a smaller property.
It was just a two-bedroom two-bath condo, so I didn't have to take care of any yard maintenance.
Or replace the roof or if there were cracks in the cement,
fix those, nothing like that. It was a pretty simple property to take care
of so that helped make it easier for me to invest in that property.
And I had done my homework beforehand. I knew what the numbers were.
I knew how much I could rent that place
for I knew what my mortgage payment would be.
I knew the HOA payment and with all of those things taken into consideration,
I knew I would have a positive cash
flow and that's what I was looking for. By taking a long-term perspective,
I knew this was going to be a good investment for me.
Honestly. I had over 50 Grand, just sitting in the bank, earning hardly
anything and the Tiffany now would be really upset with the Tiffany back then,
but I figured things out. I knew,
I needed to make my money work
for me and I was able to see that other people were successful with real estate investing.
So I knew it could be possible for me.
I did my homework and it didn't get rid of all of the fear that I had,
but it was enough that I was able to overcome that fear
and make the purchase and things weren't perfect with this condo.
There were things that needed to be updated inside of it,
but I ended up not updating anything when I first bought it and I was still able to get it rented.
It did take a little bit longer, but I did get it rented.
And later on, I did do some updates to the condo.
So it is pretty easy to rent now, but nonetheless,
I started where I was and did my best.
I took action and after seeing success
with this rental property, I knew,
I wanted to get another property,
and this time I did a little bit different
because I was going to move into this property and that way,
I could have a lower down payment and have a lower interest rate on my mortgage loan.
And this is when the real estate market started to get crazy.
It was in 2016, which people seem to think that the real estate
market got crazy more recently than that,
but honestly, it started in about 2016
because I looked at multiple properties and I put in I think at least one offer,
if not more on properties,
but it was no longer a buyers market. Like it was in 2015.
So I ended up purchasing that property in 2016.
And I moved into that property. I left my roommates where they were,
and then replaced myself in that property,
and then I got roommates in my new place and it was a lot easier to buy this third property,
because I had already done it twice before,
and then I was able to purchase another property in 2018,
which was a single family house.
And the market got even crazier then, that's when people started going quite a bit
over the asking price, and I was actually the backup offer on that property,
but the first offer fell through.
So, they came to me and asked if I still was interested in the property and I said,
I was and I was able to purchase that property,
but it wasn't easy. I had looked at a ton of different properties and put other offers in.
But once again, I knew I wanted my money working
for me and it actually was working for me in the stock market.
I had money invested in my brokerage account and that had grown significantly over time.
And I was able to pull that money out and put it towards the down payment on my property.
And I also pulled money from my Roth IRA.
And I have a video about that which I'll leave a link to above and below.
But I just felt like I wanted more money invested in real estate.
And now seeing how the market is.
I am super glad that I did that because it has gotten even crazier.
And one of the reasons that I am really glad
that I was able to purchase that single-family home is because I ended up moving into it later.
I moved into it just last year, a few months ago and I sold my other property.
And if you are curious why I did that, I do have a video for that.
I'll leave a link above and below.
But honestly what it boils down to is taking that long term perspective
and realizing that you need to make your money work
for you as much of your money as possible as soon as possible.
And it doesn't necessarily have to be in real
estate. I had just seen my friends
be so successful with real estate investing and I knew I could do that too.
And I had an interest in it because I was already doing it by having roommates.
So I decided to go in that direction
and I'm really glad that I did
but you can also make it very passive
and invest in the stock market or you can do a mixture which is actually what I prefer.
Comment below and tell me if you are going to invest in real estate or not.
And if you are wondering how I was able to save so much money.
It's because I kept a budget. I kept track of how much money was coming
in and how much money was going out.
And later on, I started using a free app so that it is electronic.
And yes, I still use a spreadsheet
but I really like using Personal Capital
because I can see all of my financial accounts in one place.
If you're interested in Personal Capital, I will leave my referral link below.
You can click on that to set up a free account
and start managing your money better and save more of your money so that you
can invest more of your money. And if you found this video helpful,
please hit that like button and share it with someone else
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even more content from me, check out the videos on the side of the screen.
Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you in the next video.