Real Estate can not be lost or stolen nor can it be carried away. Purchased with common sense, paid for in full, and managed with reasonable care it is about the safest investment in the world. – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Our journey into real estate investing began with the purchase of a foreclosure that we intended to keep as our primary residence. We had bought our first home as an estate sale in 2005 and had pretty much ripped it down to the studs and built it over. It was a wonderful home, but we had outgrown the yard and were leery of living on a fairly busy road with 3 active boys. We had tried to sell it a couple of times with no luck. The market was slow and we didn’t want to walk away with no money. We found the foreclosure nearby, on a dead end street with a town-owned field and hiking trails bordering it. We decided to go for it!
We lived in our first home while renovating the foreclosure. When we moved in October of 2014, we rented out our first home to a couple that we knew from our childrens’ school. We settled into our new home, while enjoying the cash flow from renting. The tenants were reliable and treated the house like it was their own.
Lucas sledding off the porch of our first home
After about 9 months of living in our second home, we realized that it was just too small for our family. The boys were all sharing a room and, while it was working fine, we knew that it would eventually become a problem. We found a much larger fixer-upper in our favorite neighborhood, so we bought it and listed the now-renovated foreclosure. 
The renovated foreclosure
We sold the foreclosure soon after listing. That meant that we had cash from selling the foreclosure to fix up our new home and we had an stream of income coming in each month from our rental. We realized that real estate investing, rentals and rehab were a way for us to achieve financial freedom. It wasn’t easy or “passive” in any way but we were learning from our mistakes and educating ourselves online and with books and webinars.
Next time…another rental property!
