Gloria and I were planning to wait until I was eligible for retirement. I will be eligible for a 20 year retirement from the Chicago Police Department on September 18, 2012 and will be able to start cashing in on my birthday, December 21st, 2012. I would then sell my house and with the equity we would then buy property in Phoenix, Arizona and had no real plans after that. We would just watch the world go by I guess.
I didn't originally plan on making a property management business and don't know exactly where it will take us but let's see where it goes. I was just motivated to do something back in 2008 after the presidential elections. I realized that 'things' were going to 'change' and not the way I wanted them to. I'm not going to make this a political forum so I'll end that train of thought there.
I knew that there had been a problem when I was told by a house appraiser that my house in Chicago was worth $355,000 dollars back in 2006 when I was refinancing for a lower rate that were available then. I saw that things had really changed from the time that I had originally bought it. I was only able to get it with a VA loan. Those are things that I plan to touch upon later in this Blog. Regardless of what the loan company said, I knew that that price was way over-inflated and that things like that never really happened. I decided to keep to my Conservative principles and just took out enough money to do some minor repairs around the house. I improved the property to the point that I could enjoy it.
Unfortunately, some of my neighbors and the part of the rest of the country didn't think the same way. People were buying homes that were way over-priced. Houses were selling on my blocks that were really not worth it. I was told that the real estate market was red hot and that I should sell my house and upgrade to a bigger place by real estate agents. I decided that I should stay were I was, in case things went wrong.
I had been told repeatedly that your house was an investment. It would continually go up in value. I think that most Americans did. I used my house as my major investment vehicle. I had bought stocks and was invested in several money markets. I was diversified or was I? I'll discuss that later (make sure you remind me).
The economy started to take a turn for the worse around 2006 after the elections. I just thought that things would adjust a little to where it should be. It did but did not stop, things were getting worse. I didn't think that there would be much that I could do, so I continued to pay bills and trustied in my nest-egg, my house.
In 2009, I decided that I would do a refinance of my house while it was still worth something and to out $60,000. I had a feeling that a storm was brewing and that I had to make a 'Plan B' since my original plan might be a washout. I went to Phoenix, Arizona were the housing market had crashed the year before and started looking at property there. A town called El Mirage, that had been desert just ten years earlier had many empty houses. Gloria and I looked at many houses while we were there to get a feel for the area. We spoke to many local real estate agents who were in a state of denial. They kept telling us that houses under $100,000 were not available and that there were only a few very inexpensive houses available. They were lying.
My sister Doris who lives in Surprise, Arizona saw a guy putting a 'For Sale Sign' in front of some property in El Mirage. He turned out to be a real estate agent, Dave Volking. We explained what we could afford and he sent us listings online for houses that had been foreclosed and we spent the next few months bidding. We were finally able to find one that we liked and were successful bidders, $60,000. We had a nice ranch 1088 sq ft house. We flew out and spent several weeks there getting it to living conditions.
It needed minor repairs and paint. We were able to spend within our $3000 budget to fix her up. We now had a house to live in when we retired. I wanted to keep it unoccupied until retirement. I had my parents and sister who lived nearby to look over the property. I kept a couple of plastic lawn chairs there and my parents enjoyed stopping by a few times a week and watching the US Air Force jets fly by from Luke Air Force base nearby.
Gloria was the one who came up with the idea that we should rent the house while we were waiting to move there. El Mirage kept stringent rules about renting, seems many of them were misplaced Chicago liberals. They wanted all rental property to pay city taxes for rent collected. I quickly learned an important lesson, government is an impediment to business. Our education was beginning, we needed to register with the county and state. The gave us a business license and the clerk asked us for our companies name. I made one up on the spot, Adrian and Gloria Rentals.
I was now in the business world and I had no idea what I was doing. We were making moiney renting the house and making a profit. I started to read books about renting properties. I used 'Rental Property for Dummies' as a starting guide and have read countless books on the subject. We would eventually formed our business and called it, Gregorio Management Group LLC. We are still doing business as Adrian and Gloria Rentals because it has a less cold corporate sounding name to it. We really are a mom and pop shop but we are highly motivated.
We have embarked on our new course and my life as a law enforcement officer is ending but Gloria and I have the rest of our lives to live. Let's see where this journey takes us.
I always liked the motto that the British SAS has, 'Who Dares Wins'.
We dared.
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