This past February, I found myself “self-unemployed” and two weeks away from not having any income coming in (not good, but I was there). I’ll spare the details of how this happened, but it wasn’t on purpose! I have an awesome wife and two fantastic boys who look to their daddy for food, home, clothes, and Taco Bell money!
Anyway, I had NO money, two houses over $100,000 I was trying to sell (to keep head above water), great credit (I paid out like a slot machine), and bills that were compounding with no answers as to how to pay them. I had read Rich Dad Poor Dad and found that Robert Kiyosaki was speaking at some kind of CRE Online deal in Atlanta [the CRE Online Convention].
I figured if he could write a book that good, maybe he could give me some direction as to get out of this hole I had dug. So, I put what seemed like a life savings on my credit card (the last one with any credit still available) and made plans for Atlanta.
Kiyosaki spoke for an hour and a half on the first morning and was GONE! No answers, no meeting him, and still No money! I was stuck there with all these crazy “real estate investing” people…Thank God!
It was there I heard people like Ed Garcia, Terry Vaughan, Ray Alcorn, Lonnie Scruggs, and many more who inspired me to go home and DO SOMETHING. I went home a full-time real estate investor!
While listening in at that convention, Ed and Terry offered a workshop in April on How To Get Lenders Fighting To Give You Money for those who qualified. Oh, how I had to qualify! Since I didn’t have any money to do deals I HAD to get to that seminar!
So I put what seemed like two lifetime savings on a new card and got to that next seminar. From February to April, I had done a few deals (thanks so much to David Alexander who coached and coached and coached), so I wasn’t totally in the dark. I had qualified!
It was there at the workshop listening to Ed and Terry and networking with others that I gained the knowledge to empower my new real estate venture. The workshop was everything they said it would be and more! Dot (my wife, business partner, and best friend) didn’t get to make it but immediately caught my enthusiasm when I got back home.
Since the CRE Online Convention and the “Lenders” Workshop, she and I have bought and sold sixteen properties, leased one of the $100,000+ homes for $500 per month cash flow, sold the other one and hold a $10,000 note on it, have two other rent houses and three duplexes.
Our income troubles are over, we have respect from the banks in town, and now the attorneys are even on our side! We are even in the process of purchasing our first apartment complex.
Thanks again, Ed Garcia, for the hours of mentoring process after the workshop and Jim Rayner for all your expertise and unselfishness. The money invested in gaining knowledge have long been paid for and keep returning profits.
Most of all, we want to give all the glory for our success to our God, who has shown himself strong in all of our deals by granting us uncommon favor and blessing us as we put Him first. Thanks again, David Alexander, who took us under his wing and helped us with a brilliant, creative mind, and kept telling us to GO FOR IT!
And thanks so much JP & Terry for creating Creative Real Estate Online and inviting Robert Kiyosaki to speak at the CRE Online Convention. See you again at this year’s Convention with my wife.