And so it begins

I was born in 1982 and raised in New York, NY. I graduated high school and thought that I HAD to go to college so I did. After six years of taking classes and taking time off to try and sleep, I graduated with a Bachelors in Liberal Arts. I taught 7th grade math for 2 years at various schools while I considered getting my Masters in what I thought was to be my career job. However, I became extremely disgusted with the way our American education system worked, and decided to quit teaching.

My parents both did real estate and I figured it would be nice to have a little side money, so I researched it a little more. As I researched, I realized that real estate doesn't have to be a side job, but could rather be my career. No more bosses, latenesses, write-ups, and especially no more suits and ties. My friend in college, Sha, also introduced me to one of my favorite concepts: OPM (Other People's Money). The idea is to buy a multi-unit property, rent it out, and use the rents to cover the mortgage and the rest is profit.

Sha was doing real estate in Smalltown, NY, a small upstate NY city with a population of over 100,000 people where the prices for properties are about 1/6th what you would pay in NYC. So I used my earnings from teaching to get my first property, Property Alpha in 2007. It is a 2 unit, cost $74000, and it came out to 15k for the down-payment and closing costs. A year later, I bought another 2 unit, Property Beta, for 59k with only a 8k down-payment in 2008. I manage another property that isn't mine, Property Chi. That property makes me no money, but I do it for someone that I am obligated to.

My goal, at first, was to make a million dollars in three years, starting in 2009. However, my goals have changed as my priorities have also changed. My new goal is to make at least 4k to 5k a month off real estate on its own, and finally quit working 9-5 jobs. After that, I can build a mini empire for myself and buy properties in NYC, Florida, and maybe internationally in Nigeria and London. It's a more realistic goal and it doesn't require me to burn myself out. So, doing minor math, I figure I'll be a millionaire in 6 years, 2015. And that is that.

To cut costs, I live in the basement of Alpha and share the utilities with the 2nd floor apartment. My only expenses are food and car maintenance. The only variable is life.