My Real Estate Journey Thus Far : An Introduction

 Hello Ladies, Gents, and Animal Friends. This is my very first blog post, for my Real Estate business, and, in fact, first ever. So, I thought it would be logical to make the my initial post, an introduction to myself, and a shortened version of how I ended up here, and why. Up until now, i've kept most of my work in Real Estate pretty private, posting the occiasional picture of a house I sold, or a project I finished, but, in my current position, it makes more sense to become a more public figure, and put it all on the table, so, here goes..
 My Initial foray into Real Estate began with my very first job out of College. UC Santa Cruz. Go Banana Slugs! The year was 2008, and the market had just began to take a proverbial crap.  Decent employment, for someone with little work experience, was hard to come by. Fittingly enough, my first paid position was a direct result of the economic downturn. 
  Through a series of, not the most honest, job interviews (My philosophy at the time was "Fake it 'till you make it") , I was able to land a fairly respectable position as a marketer for a website called FirstStepEquity.com. At the time, I didn't know what equity was, and I was about as far off as one could possibly be from taking my first step toward it. Regardless, it paid actual money, and I knew I could learn to do the job. 
   My actual job responsibilities are irrelevant here, but, the website I was marketing for is not. My time at this job planted a slow growing seed in my brain, and introduced me to the world of Real Estate. 
   The Website was a very well put together affair, that, for 40/ month offered access to current, constantly updated foreclosure and pre foreclosure listings,  which, if you remember,  were surging at the time. Membership to the site also included guidance, from a couple of seasoned investors, on how to purchase these homes, at a discounted rate, to live in, or to turn for a profit. I saw hundreds of people positioning themselves to make huge amounts of money, and in many cases, actually bring their investments to fruition,  and  subsequently pocket thousands and thousands of dollars...I was immediately hooked into Real Estate investing, and I knew that someday I would be doing the same. 
Fast forward to 2012. I was living with my brother, who was also my best friend, and business partner,  in San Diego, and both of us were working unsatisfying jobs, and lots of odd construction gigs on the side,  just to pay the bills. My enthusiasm for Real Estate investing was shared by him, but we also both shared an affliction, commonly referred to as "being broke" . Then, as luck would have it, our landlord at the time went into foreclosure himself, and the house we were living in was bought at auction. This was surprising to us, because the first we heard about it was a knock on the door from the new owner and him trying to explain it to us that we had to move out, as we stood in the doorway, literally in our underwear,  hungover and stunned. The silver lining to this was that since we had the legal right to stay in the home for 6 months, the new owner (investor) knew it would be more profitable to pay us to move out. Also known as "Cash for Keys", a technique that I would later use with a difficult tenant.  After moving expenses, we ended up with about 5k, free and clear , which was huge to us at the time. 
With 5 K in our pockets, we decided it was time to make our move. We used the money to enroll ourselves in an investing training course. I won't mention the name of it, because looking back on it now is a little embarrassing, seeing as how we came out of the course with little useful, knowledge, broke again. The saving grace here was that we were now beyond motivated to make money investing, even if it was just to get our 5k back. 

We began chatting with a Realtor, and going out and viewing homes with him, that we couldn’t possibly buy. He decided he liked us however, and set us up with, what turned out to be, the deal of a lifetime. In late 2012 my brother and I quit our jobs, took a leap of faith, and a hard money loan, and purchased our first short sale property. The property was a 3bed 2 bath beater in Serra Mesa. We didn’t know much about flipping homes, but we put our noses to the grind stone, learned on the job, and ended up selling the property in June of 2013 for approximately 170k profit. Thank God!(Jesus, Buddha, or the Universe). We now had some experience and a bankroll..
To make a long story Short, over the next 3 years, we bought and sold around 12 homes of our own, and partnered on at least as many more, making pretty decent money, but more importantly , gaining priceless, and copious amounts of Real Estate experience that one sure as hell can’t come by in a 5k Investment seminar. Believe me, I tried. We were doing want we wanted to do, and loving every minute of it.
However, as life tends to do, about a year ago, a series of heavy family issues (which i wont delve deep into), came my way, and brought our business to a screeching Halt.
As the pieces fell, I came to the quick conclusion that I wanted to remain in the Real Estate industry, plus, I now had a family to take care of, which really turned up the pressure to succeed. So, I began studying to get my Real Estate license. I had wanted to get it during the past 3 years, but was so unbelievably busy that I wasn’t able. Now that I had the time, I finally got after it.
Nearing the end of my studies, I began looking for jobs, I came across my current position, which is Executive assistant to the Broker of Solutions Real Estate, Mark Schultz. Since I got the job in September, Mark and I have completed 9 transactions. Again, even more importantly, my knowledge of Real Estate has increased ten-fold, and continues to do so daily. With my flip/ rehab experience I learned a lot, but I never knew how much I didn’t know.
So, Here I am Currently working full time with Mark at Solutions Real Estate, Expanding my knowledge of the business on a daily basis, and Enjoying (almost) Every minute of it.
Thank you for taking the time to read a bit about me, and I hope to be able to work with, each and every one of you. And, If I can’t work with everyone, I hope that future posts on this blog, and page will provide some useful nuggets of knowledge or at least entertainment, to help some of you along you Real Estate Journey. I promise to try to keep it as interesting as possible.

Until Next time,

Chris Barrey
Solutions Real Estate
(760) 271 -4338