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He Knows the Way that I Take (part 4)


With the theme that God is in total control of our lives and that he wants what's best for us, whether that best seems reasonable to us or not, I want to continue my series of thoughts on our real estate investing journey today. 

My friend sat next to me at that Thanksgiving dinner in, of all places, São Paulo, Brazil, and began his conversation with me by saying, "You need to get into real estate investing."

He proceeded to share a little of his story. Before his call to the mission field thirty years prior, he had aspirations of becoming a real estate investor/agent. He liked real estate, and his goal was just that, to invest in the thing that brought him joy. In the meantime, God worked His plan and called my friend to be a church planter in Brazil. Following that call, my friend left his dream behind and turned his focus to spiritual things. 

However, something happened recently that had opened an exciting scenario. A close relative had died and left him her house. He encountered few legal details to work through, including a troublemaker daughter, whose mom excluded from her will. After all, was said and done, there was a good amount of what I talked a little bit about yesterday, equity. 

My friend has a couple of young investor friends, one of whom has a sizable, at least for me, portfolio. A portfolio is a fancy word for a group of properties that you own or can buy. 

So, when my friend got in touch with these two good friends, they immediately began to help (mentor) him toward what would eventually be a life-changing situation. The goal would be what is called passive income from buy and hold rental properties. 

I was fascinated by the story but thought that it was way out of my league. You had to have money to make money, as the old saying goes. 

The conversation with my friend made me think, what could I do to get started in the rental business? I called my older brother, who years earlier had encouraged me to buy my first duplex. I started the conversation with, "Well, I'm thinking about buying a rental property. What do you think?" He replied with one word, "Don't!" 

Almost 50 years earlier, this same brother had encouraged me to buy a duplex. I was eighteen! So what was the problem now? He went on, "Being a landlord is no fun. Throw Brazil into the mix, and it's even worse! I wouldn't do it." 

That seemed like the proverbial cold water tossed onto my bidding idea. We laughed and joked a little bit more, and then I hung up. Humm, now what? I know! YouTube! 

YouTube is an invaluable resource these days. How-too instructions on everything from boiling an egg to buying an island in the Pacific Ocean are outlined in plain English. So there I went to get some ideas about what to do concerning my investing future. 

I typed in my search word, and one of the first to come up was a guy by the name of Clayton Morris. Clayton had a beginning intro where he was standing in front of a small house. As the music played, he said I am standing in front of our first rental property, which happened to be a single-family in Detroit! Fascinating. 

I watched Morris for a few months and discovered another guy with a different style and story during those months. Phil Pustejovsky. Try saying that one three times fast. 

In Clayton Morris' story, he went from being a famous and successful TV personality on the Fox morning show in Philadelphia to being almost homeless. He was let go from his job because the station where he worked decided to take a different direction. 

Phil Pustejovsky's story was that he had graduated from a prestigious college with his degree but was left with tremendous debt and ended up living in his pickup truck for a while. 

These men rose to millionaire status by investing in what they called "buy and hold" real estate. 

The third guy that I discovered while watching Clayton Morris was Michael Zuber of One Rental at a Time fame. 

What? Have you never heard of him? His story is recounted in the book that he wrote called, you guessed it, One Rental at a Time. You can check it out on Amazon. But for my story, Zuber's connection with real estate is that he was a wheeler-dealer on Wall Street. He was making a six-figure salary. However, he made a bad trade and lost a lot of money. 

Michael began his real estate journey and is currently financially free and helping others begin their personal journey to that end. Check out his One Rental at a Time course on Facebook. Zuber even asked me to be on his YouTube show about a year ago. Wow, what a scary moment. But fun too.

This post is getting long, so I’ll share more tomorrow. 

Here are some links to helpful information.

HERE is my Michael Zuber One Rental at a Time interview!

Here is a helpful paper that Michael wrote to help ordinary people like us

Here is Phil Pustevosky’s YouTube channel


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