Standing in sewage (2018)

My dad has been restoring Victorian homes since before I was born. Our family renovated & rented them outside of Philadelphia, and as a kid I mowed the lawns and shoveled the snow so the township wouldn’t fine us. I watched the rest of it too - the permits, the zoning hearings, the sketchy tenants and the midnight plumbing.

My dad is very capable with any power tool and has decades of experience building things. I was more comfortable with the computer. I knew early on that my value-add in real estate would not be wearing a tool belt - my skills were on the phone, mouse & keyboard.

I bought rentals anyway. Half of a twin when I was 23, a duplex with a friend, and in 2017 a building with a coin-op laundromat and 3 apartments. The seller carried a second mortgage on the deal, so the seller became my lender (which is exactly how a seller-financed note is born).

That July I took over the key rings, reset the bill changers and seeded the change machines with rolls of quarters.

Then in 2018 the main stack clogged. Three apartments and a full laundromat of wastewater, none of it leaving the building.

The way I’ve told it since - “that was maybe the last straw for me, when I’m in this basement full of sewage and realizing that my dad’s skills of property management are his ability to be a general contractor, and fix things, and be available for people. And really, my skill set lies on the computer, and talking on the phone.”

I’d been working in mortgage notes for 7 years by then. It was the last rental I bought.

I’ve bought a few more houses since, for a project (none of them rentals). Managing the contractors on those rehabs has been even more of a headache.