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A little over a year ago, I wrote this post: Why I’m Investing in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
When I wrote this post, Sasha and I had just moved to Fort Wayne and had 0 rental properties.
A lot can be achieved in a year though, even in a year with a global pandemic.
So where are we at today?
Financials
Well, between currently owned and under contract properties we are at 33 units.
Some of the units we have partners on, others we own 100%.
Our initial goal for 2020 (our first year) was to reach $8.3k / month in cashflow. We didn't achieve that in the first year, but we are on track to hit that in year 2.
You can track our cashflow progress here: https://www.polpogrouprealestate.com/blog-posts/2021-rental-revenue-and-cashflow
Our goal for 2021 is to reach $15k / month in cashflow.
Other Learnings
We also realized quickly that real estate rentals are very much a business. With this is mind, we decided to treat it exactly how I would any other business.
This means putting in the proper structure of meetings, designing and building the systems, implementing a hiring process, etc.
As a quick note for those that don't know me, I've run multi-million dollar businesses in the past, bootstrapped with no funding. You can learn more about me here.
One new thing for me is bringing in outside money. In my past businesses, I solely relied on cashflow from the business to fund and grow the operations.
With real estate, there's a real capital constraint on how fast you can grow. We are definitely putting in our own cash, but also starting to bring in outside partners.
I'm excited for this because it's something new for me to learn.
While there is still much to learn, I feel my previous experience in business will help overall with this journey in building our real estate rental business.
Other Opportunities besides Rentals
We are also starting to see other opportunities in the real estate industry besides rentals.
For example, we are spinning out a real estate design and construction business. Initially we'll service projects in which we own equity, but there's an opportunity for client work as well we think.
It could also be interesting to buy real estate trades companies, like a plumbing company. The demand is crazy for trades, while there are so many poorly run businesses. Would be interesting to buy some of these and try to run them better.
There's also a potential for a private / hard money lending business.
And, as my background is in software development, I'm also starting to see some opportunities for building software.
We'll see where this all takes us, but overall, I'm very excited.
When I sold my last business, I left New York City and wanted to dive into a new industry. I felt a bit too comfortable and complacent. But now, I feel like that excitement again that I did when I was starting my previous business.
This time around, I have more business experience that can be applied. At the same time, I still have so much to learn. Learning a new city and a new industry is a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to this journey.