How it all started

We get asked all the time, "how did this all begin"? It really didn't start off as a big deal- just something that seemed to make sense. So, Lucas gave it a shot!

Our real estate venture started when I was still in high school.  Lucas was thinking about what he wanted to do as his long-term career, and knew he didn't want to work for someone else his entire life.  He was watching TV one night, and an infomercial came on about investing in Real Estate using tax sales and auctions.  He bought the training course and started searching for tax auctions in our state. A quiet beginning that he has no idea would so profoundly change our lives.

After a few weeks he found an auction, and had some money saved to invest with. I'll post a link to the more detailed post about the tax sale/auction process, but for now I'll keep it simple. He purchased our first piece of raw land at that auction. The following year he bought another one,  just a few miles away from the first. I graduated high school, started working and then started college.
We wanted to buy our first house, but found that banks wouldn't lend to us because we had no credit established.  So, we started with a few credit cards, used them and paid them off before the end of the month, and built up our credit. After about a year, we had good credit and were prepared to approach lenders.

After a few months of searching and putting offers in, we bought a house that was in good shape, and were able to get tenants in before our first mortgage payment was due! Let me back up- while we were waiting for that house to close, we saw an ad in the local paper for a fixer-upper with terms available (aka seller financing). We actually closed on that house before the first one closed, so within a few months we had our first two houses. It's not rocket science, it just takes some planning!

And that's how it began!