BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 862: From Sleeping on a Dirt Floor to Making $80K/Month (in 2 Years!) | ENCORE EPISODE

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

Happy holidays, BiggerPockets listeners. You've all been good this year, so instead of a lump of coal, you're getting a special episode delivered on the most merry day of the year. We'll be sharing Yamundow Camara's unbelievable journey from dirt-poor poverty to INCREDIBLE passive income, even against all odds. If you're unsatisfied with your holiday gifts this season, listen to this episode—it may change your ENTIRE outlook on life and give you something to be extra grateful for today!  ______ How do you go from absolute poverty to passive income in a short amount of time? What if you were raised on the other side of the world, where even a basic education had to be fought for, and every opportunity was a constant struggle? This is the real story of Yamundow Camara, who went from sleeping on a dirt floor in a small village of Gambia to making a million dollars per year thanks to real estate. Yamundow grew up in an environment foreign to many of us. When her parents passed away in her youth, she was forced to live with relatives that treated her as a nuisance, not someone worth nurturing. She slept on the floor of her family’s home and was sometimes lucky enough to have a cardboard box as a mattress. She was set to be wed in her early teenage years, but thanks to her drive, determination, and pleading of her aunts, Yamundow was given a chance to go to high school and college and later immigrate to the US. From there, Yamundow put success as her sole focus. She not only academically overachieved, but was able to do an INCREDIBLE amount of investing with almost no money, no credit score, and no experience in the industry. She now sits on over thirty rental units, with a monthly income that rivals most Americans’ yearly salaries. Yamundow has one of the most incredible stories we’ve ever shared on the podcast, and you’ll have to tune in to hear her unimaginable path to success. In This Episode We Cover: How Yamundow went from complete poverty to making $80,000 in cash flow a month  Putting education first and the true value of hard work and perseverance  Investing with NO credit score and VERY little money and how to find banks that will lend to you Working two jobs and why increasing your income is ESSENTIAL to building wealth  Out-of-state real estate investing and what to do when your local market is too expensive  How to find (and keep) quality contractors, property managers, and other team members  Using the BiggerPockets Rental Property Calculators to make sure a deal is worth doing  And So Much More! Links from the Show Find an Agent Find a Lender BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Pro Membership BiggerPockets Bookstore BiggerPockets Bootcamps BiggerPockets Podcast BiggerPockets Merch Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Learn About Real Estate, The Housing Market, and Money Management with The BiggerPockets Podcasts Get More Deals Done with The BiggerPockets Investing Tools Find a BiggerPockets Real Estate Meetup in Your Area Be a Guest on the BiggerPockets Podcast Ask David Your Question David's BiggerPockets Profile David's Instagram Rob's BiggerPockets Profile Rob's Instagram Rob's TikTok Rob's Twitter Rob's YouTube Use the BiggerPockets Rental Property Calculator on Your Next Deal 3 Ways to Invest in Real Estate With Little to No Credit From Extreme Poverty to DIY Wealth and 2 Full-Time Incomes Book Mentioned in the Show: BRRRR by David Greene Long-Distance Real Estate Investing by David Greene SCALE by David Greene Connect with Yamundow: Yamundow's BiggerPockets Profile Yamundow's Instagram Click here to listen to the full episode: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-862 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pogas podcast holiday edition. I am your host, The Grinch of Real Estate, and I'm being joined today by my favorite elf. He's an angry elf. Rob Obisola. Call me angry one more time. If you're listening to this when it's airing, then we're wrapping up 2023, and a lot of us are spending time with loved ones. So today we're bringing you one of the most beloved episodes of this past year, our interview with Yamu Kamara. Yeah, you know, we've heard a lot of inspiring stories over the year on this show, but Yamu's story really struck a chord with people and with myself personally. I remember choking up during the interview and you guys were like,

what's the question? And I was like, yes, that's right. What happened next in your story? And it was a really just inspirational story. It's one of my favorite that we've ever heard on the show, specifically because it just shows you what's possible in the world of real estate, no matter what's holding you down. But it's not just her story that's impressive. It's also her results. Yamu is making over $80,000 a month from her real estate portfolio. And she breaks down exactly how she did it in just two years. All with strategies that are still relevant today, like house hacking and medium-term rentals. And by the way, to everyone listening, we so appreciate you being a part of the Bigger Pockets community. We love you.

We thank you. We're grateful for everything you do for us. So please, from the bottom of our hearts, enjoy this episode. Welcome, Yamu to the Bigger Pockets podcast. How are you this morning? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. Yes.

Let's jump right into this thing. I want to hear about your story. So tell me where are you originally from? And can you give us an idea how you grew up? Sure. So my name is Yang Wundau, Kamara, but I go by Yamu for short. I'm from West Africa. The small country called the Gambia, West Coast. It's by Senegal, little country inside Senegal, literally. So it's about 2.something million. I'm the seven child of my family. And, yeah, I grew up in that small village. I lost my mom when I was two, and I lost my dad when I was 11. So I was very. raised by my elder sister. And yeah, there's a little background around me. So what was it like growing up there? Most of us have not traveled to the continent of Africa, much less where you're from. Tell us a little bit about what daily life was like. Yeah. So it's more of, we live in extended family. So when my

dad, when my mom passed, I was two. When my dad passed, before my dad passed, he was really sick. So my sister was forced to get married. So she took me with her and my brother, my elder brother was like four or five years, all me. So I grew up as an orphan in her in-law's house. Yeah, it was hard growing up in an extended family that you don't belong in because usually we live in the family. So let's say a family member, like a husband has maybe four wives or five wives and they have kids. So that household is all, let's say, the last name is green. It's like green kunda meaning everybody in the house is called, it's green. So you coming in with a different last name, it's like you don't belong. There's some activity that you will not participate in because you're not a child of that

household. So it was clear growing up from an emotional standpoint, you were a stranger in a sense in the house. I mean, they knew who you were, but you were not welcome with open arms as if you were one of the kids. There was preferential treatment. You had at a very young age, you had to experience a lack of control and the pain that comes from not really having control over the outcome of your own life. Yes, basically. So, I mean, you were prone into a situation. You had very little control. sounds like there was a lot of pain. Did you have your own room, or you sharing a room with other people? What was that like?

No. So sometimes I would come in, like as a child, just playing with other kids outside. And I just run in to go drink water and there's a meeting about us, about me and my brother being returned. So I always thought, oh, so we don't belong here. And it really hurts as a child. I saw this meme on, like, saying on TikTok the other day and it clicked to me. I was like, this is how it feels. Like, you don't know what pain is until you live in somebody's halfway.

doesn't really want you there. And I was like, that host me. Like, that clearly explained my life. So I wasn't allowed to sleep on the bed. So I would lay on the floor. When I say floor, I mean like sand, floor, not like cement, not like carpet or anything. So me sleeping on the floor, an eight-year-old, nine-year-old girl, I would have bed box. Sometimes worms will come and they will touch me, and I'll just wake up. So my brother made me this touchlight. So I was like you guys calling here and I'll just put Luce batteries there and that night I'll just wake up

and I'll kill the veil box on the wall So I guess from there I was always obsessed with houses because I never really held My father's house Sometimes when I visit for holidays We would not eat sometimes Sometimes we eat once a day

And sometimes when I go one time It was a rainy season of summer holidays And we would have to get up Because the water was coming inside the house That's how we were So me laying down there as a girl I always like say I'm obsessed with houses. So when I see Fransom's house after school, I like to go to the houses,

and I always wonder when they'm going to get this house, when they'm going to buy a house. But I didn't think buy multiple houses. I would just say just the idea of having a house. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned in that TikTok, well, first of all, thank you so much, Yama, for sharing. I'm sorry. No, no, no. You mentioned in that TikTok that when you're not wanted in the home, I think that's when you experience the pain, right?

And so I'm wanting to know, was that really the moment, that inspiration where you're like, I am going to find my own place one day, I'm going to have my own bed. Was that sort of the beginning of your real estate dreams or did it come later on in life? Yes, that's where he started. I always knew one day I'm going to make it and one day I'm going to buy a home. That's what my dream to say. One day I also have a home and a bed. So I'm like a house of my own.

Is that your why? Is that today your why? Like the reason you do all this is basically to fulfill that dream. I have multiple wives, but that's one of them. What else you got? I want to know. Poverty. I don't want my child to go through any of those things that I went through, ever.

You know, that's something as you were talking, Yamu, that I thought of for you growing up in a house. I'm sure the genesis of why people felt like they didn't want you guys there. They talked about you leaving was there was not enough money to go around. If you were not eating maybe one time a day, they were incredibly financially stressed. And so you're a burden in a financial sense. You and your brother on this other family and they're thinking from their flesh is what's the easiest way to lighten my own load. And the emotional pain that has as someone else, as you experienced, was intense.

Now fast forwarding to where you are now, you have 90 units that you own and more under contract. You're making $80,000 a month. You've come a long way from sleeping on a floor having to wake up. to kill bedbugs that were looking to crawl into where you were. Like, I know I just kind of give a spoiler alert to everybody listening to this, but it is a fantastic story. This is like something right out of a comic book. Do you know that you're a superhero?

Oh, my wish I was. Thank you. Okay. Well, we're going to find out how you did this, right? Like, what happened where you went from just wanting a bed to owning multiple, multiple, almost 100 units at this point? I have an uncomfortable question for you. If your rent collection drop to 80% next month,

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slash bigger pockets. That's rent rEDI.com slash bigger pockets. So let's go back a little bit again. We understand that life was challenging other ways other than just financial, especially as a woman in a male dominated society. Can you list some of the things that you were not supposed to accomplish? Yes. So I, I, this is, this is not how the life offer a goal from my village supposed to be. I'm the only one that went to college in my village. For where growing up, a girl is supposed to just go to all the way to maybe middle school, and then you're supposed to get married. For me, it was hard for my actors to push and my sister to push for my uncles,

because the male have more say in the woman's life, so when you're getting married, your uncles take care of it. So by the time I'm like 16 and 17, they're already thinking of arranged marriage. They all are thinking of who you're going to get married to is already arranged for you. So for me, for them to, to even let me to go to high school to college was a big deal. Talk less of coming to America by myself and not been married. So by the time I was in high school, most of my friends that I grew up, they had two kids already married and everything. Yama, did you have to fight to go to high school?

Was that like a really big battle with sort of, I guess, your family or your extended family in the household? I mean, I got to imagine that probably didn't come easy. So, oh, no, I didn't have to find my aunties. I had to go through my aunties. I don't have the audacity to stand. up to my uncles. So my aunt just was saying, at least she's smart of school. The principal says she's really good. She has a scholarship. We're not spending any money. Just let her go. The same thing with college. It was like, she has a scholarship, let her go. They begged. Okay, after this, we, I already had the person of the get married to. I already knew who I was going to get in my since I was a young girl. So it's prearranged marriage. So I already knew.

They were like, okay, she knew she's going to marry this guy when she's done. So it was like, I'd go to my auntie, my mother's sister. My mother's eldest sister, the whole spouse now, rest and peace. But she was fighting for me a lot, my sister. Wow. Yeah. So you mentioned that you, you know, obviously your Y was the ability to eventually go on and have your own bed and own your home.

And you said you don't want to go back to poverty. And that was a big motivation for you. Was that the same with, school because you mentioned you're very good at school. This was something that that you worked hard at. Did you work hard? Like with school in your mind, your ticket out at that moment? Did you know, okay, if I really crush it in school, if I study and I get good grades, this could be my ticket out of this life? So for me, I was like, okay, if I do so great and every exam I'm at top of my school, I will always have scholarship. So where I'm from is nepotism. For you to get scholarship,

you have to have a connection to the government or something. I have known of those connections. So the only way to get through is to be the best from my school, the best out of the outstanding one. So I was hoping if I can get to that top, they would not say, oh, we don't have money for her to go or we don't have this. It would just be, oh, she has a scholarship. What are you losing?

Like it's nothing. She's just going to go. And that's how it happened. Wow. Okay. This is an amazing story. I'm again, I thank you for the vulnerability here. Tell us a little bit about your first entry point into real estate. Was that here in the States? Was that back in Africa?

No. So it started in the States here. With Africa, I just knew that I was going to, when they, I'm going to make it in my house. But at some point, I just wanted to get out. Because the more I go on my education, the more I know this is no whatever I want more. So from high school, I know I want to go to college. I was like, this is going to be a big deal for me to beg them to go. So I have to do really good for me to get a scholarship. to get it. So I made it to college. Because they eventually let me go to college, it was more like, okay, you have to be a doctor. It's but African families, they dictated your life. It's just like, you're a woman. So it's like, you're going to be a doctor. I have good grace in chemistry, but I don't like biology and chemistry at all, and I don't like blood. So I was like, I have to figure away and way. So there was this program, computer science that was introduced. Because I was good at math, it kind of clicked for me in a sense.

like this is what I want to do. So I did a bachelor's in computer science and a minor in mathematics. So during my final semester, at this point there was just few girls or maybe two of us. I think two or one of us in a computer science class. So I'll go to some classes, all boys, right? So I was like, you know what, let me start a nonprofit organization. That's going to teach girls how to program, how to call, just basic IT skills. So I started this nonprofit organization.

At that time, I ordered to have an internship at a software company in the country there. So I will use their computers and we will travel with my colleagues in the organization and teach girls basic IT skills like how to create a calculator, how to create folders and stuff like that. So it kind of took off and then different regions were doing it. So at that time there was this program called Mandela Washington Fellowship. And it's for young African leaders that are doing amazing things in their communities, like fighting wars, helping women, violence, crime, all that stuff. So a lot of people will send me this link

and say, you need to apply because you're doing amazing things. I'm like, I can't compare to what these people are doing. But okay, I'll just apply. And I applied and I keep going. First interview at the U.S. Embassy, I was selected. Second one, I moved on to that one, and then they emailed me from D.C. and say, you got it? You're going to come to the U.S.

You're going to come to the U.S. And we're going to place your Northwestern. And after your fellowship, you meet President Obama in D.C. So that's how I came to the U.S. Yeah. That is amazing. And I mean, was that a dream come true? Or was that so far out? Because like, for me, I imagine your dream was to go to college, but maybe I'm sure you never imagined this, right? So what did that feel like? It was, I was like a celebrity. My auntie was so happy. So that was also a ticket.

So I was like, at that time, I was like, I'm not coming back to mind of this guy. I mean, like there's so many other things for me. There's more for me to accomplish than just come back and get married. And that's it. And that's what happened. So, but then I was already applying for all the scholarship at that time. So by the time the U.S. Embassy was processing

and we're doing the orientation of how it's going to be when I need the president and all that stuff. I was already applying for schools here in the U.S. And I got a full scholarship to study at the University of Illinois. And, yeah, I was like, when I come back, I'm not going back. That's amazing. So you were studying, I guess, computer science or in Africa, right? And then you come to Northwestern, and what are you studying at this point?

It was business, business and entrepreneurship, yeah. Okay, and so you obviously, you crush it, you make it, you finish the program, and you go into these respective careers, or is this when your real estate journey begins? Yes. So I was, I had to five roommates. So what happened was my whole class, mostly, what their parents will do is get them a place, and then they will rent out the rooms, more like rent out the spaces in the room. So in one room you can have, they could, so let's say the rent is $800, right?

Or $1,000. They will rent out each room. they will rent after international students to sleep on there. So the whole concept of renting a room is more like renting a space. So you get your mattress and you share one room with three other girls. So we were paying rent to them while they take the money, make profit and take their money and pay their mortgage. We call that arbitrage. I was going to say, it's the ultimate house hack, house hack arbitrage.

Okay, so it sounds like you saw that happening. and instead of thinking, well, I'm being ripped off or that's not fair. They're charging more than they have to. You thought, oh, I want to be in that person's position. I want to own the asset. And I want to be renting out to people, right? Oh, yeah. I was like, this is an amazing idea.

I was like, I'm going to do this one day. So I always had even when I was starting searching for my first property, I was looking for a property that has more than one unit. So that way I could do more rooms too. I love that. See, your data scientist's brain was like, okay, the pattern that I need. to catch on is a property with more than one unit, more than one bedroom, a lot of spaces that can be rented as opposed to a pretty kitchen or a nice backyard or, you know, the things that everybody

else is, oh, I love the oak tree in the front yard. You're like, no, no, no, there's no space in an Excel spreadsheet for an oak tree. I need to see the place that I can get the most beds into this unit. I love that. When did you start trying to invest in real estate yourself? Yes. So after I graduated, of course, I don't have any savings, but I don't have student debt, right? And of course, coming as an international student today, you get a social security, but I never knew anything about credit because I lived in a school setting.

I work for the school. I go home, study, come back work for school, go home, study, come back, goes class. That's all I knew. So there was no introduction to credit or anything credit score. So I have a debit card that the bank gave me that I gave my $1,000 from.

That's it. So I don't have any credit. But again, when I graduated, I had a job to work for the CDC in Atlanta. So I moved from Illinois to Atlanta, Georgia to work for the CDC as a data scientist. First couple of months, I started September 2019. Just a few months later, COVID happened. But before COVID happened, I've already started doing my research because I was like,

I've ever made that much money that I had, right? At that time, I have saved of $8,000. I'm like, I'm ready by then. I love reading. So I went and said, okay, my first paycheck, of course, I have to send money back home. And as an immigrant, you can ask any income, especially from Africa. if you travel to the U.S. or travel abroad, you like the ticket. So everybody depends on you.

Every money you have to take your family and stuff. I'm like, this is not going to walk out where I just work and send money. And that's it. But when does it stop? And how when do I save? So I said, this is what I'm going to do. And I take all what I save and then start investing real estate. And of course, before thinking of, I already knew I would do real estate, but I don't have the knowledge.

So what I did was I Googled, went on YouTube. and I see bigger pockets coming up a lot. So this is, of course. David, Davey and Brandon, every Wednesday you guys have this event that you do. That's me in there every day listening. I'm at work. I'm listening to the podcast. I'm cooking.

I'm listening to the podcast. I'm in the train going to work. I'm listening to the podcast. So by the time, I was already, I had so much information. I said, okay, they said the best way to get funding. Of course, when you were number one, is to go up and walk with local banks. I was like, okay, I cannot afford Georgia, of course, at that time.

It's like, let me start with where I saw what I wanted to do, which is Illinois. So I looked at properties in that area, the same city that I went to college in. I was in finding properties. So I called different cities, different banks in the city, made a list, and I called each of them. Every day I'll make different calls. And I get a lot of nose, but I'm used to getting knows. I didn't let that stop me. So I finally got one bank to listen to me.

And I said, I just started working. You see, this is how much I make. This is just my base salary. But I'm going to get more as I go. And this is how much $8,000 is what I saved up. I'm ready. I'm buying looking for properties in this private room. So I already have my document and my speech ready for when I call what I saved.

And how many banks did you call, YAMU? It's a lot of banks. I think I listed all of that. I just went on Google. And I just all the banks. And then finally you got one that that would hear your story. Yeah. So she actually, she wasn't the, well, she's the vice president of the bank now, but before she wasn't.

So she was like, well, I know you got all these great things and you know how to analyze properties and you know, you know what you want, what aspect you want to go to. However, you don't have any credit score. What you can do is go get a discover credit card, capital world credit card, bill your credit score. And then you can come back to six months. or like in one year. So I was like, okay, at least she got to listen to me. And then I was like, you know why?

Because every day I'm analyzing this. I'm a big of progress analyzing this every day. I was like, I got this to me a chance. So what I did was, I was like, this is what I would do. I found a property that was listed for $52,000. It was the owners, the owners were going through a divorce and they were desperate to sell, right? They wanted to get rid of it.

They wanted to separate and do all of that stuff. So I was like, okay, found this property. I went on the contract even before approaching the ladies. I approached her back and say, I found this property is $52,000. It's three units. Two bedrooms at least I rented for $7.50. One bedrooms are rented for this lunch. Even if only one unit is rented, my mortgage would not be, I have still cash flow.

So I wrote the numbers down because I ran it in the calculator and everything makes sense. So I submitted it to her. and then I called her. I submitted it by email first and then I called her. She was like, you know what? We'll give you a chance. And they were like, we'll finance it. And that's how it happened. Okay. So you call, you go down a list of basically every bank in the city. You keep hearing no, no, no, but not a big deal because you're used to hearing no's. So you just keep going. Finally, someone is willing to hear you out. And before you actually get the pre-approval or the approval from them, you find this house and you say, I'm just going to, I'm just going to make an offer.

I'm going to get it under contract and I'll figure out the financing later. And so you get it under contract and then you go to your banker. You're like, hey, I got it. Hello. Can you approve me? And they're like, all right, we're going to make an exception for you. And then they basically fund the loan. Yeah. They funded it. They were like, well, the reason why we did is because it's not like your credit score is bad. You just don't have history. Right. So I, because my credit is fresh. So it doesn't have history, but it's not bad. And I don't have any other debt. I don't have any other expenses, I don't own a car at the time. I'm not paying anything except those two credit cash she told me. And I was already paying those off for two months before she was like,

okay, we'll do it. Wow, that's amazing. So you buy this property and you said, all right, even if I just rent one, I'm going to cash flow. What ended up happening? Did that property end up filling up more than that? How many units was it? It's three units and it's a two bedroom. It's a of two bedroom, one bedroom. Everything that could go wrong in a deal went wrong in the property. Turned out the property manager, the numbers that the agents sent me were wrong. The tenants were not actually paid because it's a COVID at this time. I closed on that property April 17.

It was already to shut down already. This is COVID time. There were one tenant that was about to leave. And there's another tenant that hasn't paid for like one year. And then there was one unit that was vacant. So them telling me they're fully occupied, they was bringing this much, was for the lot. So what I did was, the unit that was,

the tenant was about to leave was in a better shape. So we just, I just painted that, just basic cleaning and painting and then rented that out. So while that was that was rented, the rent was coming in, after there was an announcement that the government is going to, the city were given out to people that were behind on rent. So remember that the landlord and,

everyone has lied to me already at that point. So the tenant that was that that was supposed to get that amount of money about eight months worth of rank was sent to me directly because it was supposed to be an application between the landlord and the tenant. So we applied together and she got $8,000. So I took that $8,000 and I put it to to renovate the other units. And now it's cash flow for $2,000. And my mortgage is only $300. Wow. That's amazing. Okay. So a bit of a rocky start. But you're able to sort of work it out. And out of curiosity, because you said at this time, you were working for the CDC, right? Uh-huh. Okay. So was this like particularly a difficult time? Because obviously you're working for the CDC. COVID is happening. I'm sure you're

busy doing your actual job. And then you're also getting into real estate. Everything is going wrong. So you're trying to have it. Obviously you have to balance everything. Was that overwhelming or was it like, you know, no big deal? It was overwhelming, but it taught me so much. So at that time, in my team, everyone in my team is a lab scientist. So we're working in a lab. I'm the data scientist. So every time a lab scientist go into the lab, let's say they go at 2 a.m.

I have to be up by 4 a.m. to render data so they can go on it, they can get the report to send it to a particular state. So, in mind all the data that's coming on all 50 states about COVID. Yeah, it was a lot. So I would be up at 4 a.m. I'll have my laptop waiting to analyze data while I'm also checking my real estate and trying to figure out what the numbers and everything. So it was not easy at all, but I was still listening to podcasts. I was already in.

I had to figure it out. But it was not an easy time. Yep. It was in. Right. The rise of the tech savvy investors here. You don't need a huge team or tons of overhead to manage rental properties. Just the right tools.

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to keep buying more property. Was there a specific skill or strategy that you developed? Yeah. So when I got that first property stabilized, I was like, okay, what next thing I need to know is move all because I'm not having much cash flow coming in at that time. So the property was actually cash flowed a lot,

like $2,000. But however, I'm not getting the money. Like it's going back to the property manager. It throws out the property manager was stealing from me. Every time I talked to him, he said he uses his card to pay his contractor because most property managers come with their own team. So he said he paid his contract.

For example, let's say, he said I paid a contract of $5,000 to do the flooring and pay for this unit, right? And I will just do that my calculation, like the numbers are not making sense, but I know that it's cash flow away because the tenants will pay at this point. And my property manager always say, Oh, Chester this or Chester that.

So I know the contractor's thing is Chester. Of course, I'm a data scientist. If I want to find data anyway, I would find it. So I went and researched on him. It's a small town. I had researched him. I found him. And I was like, hey, my name is Yiamu.

I know that you don't have to answer these questions, but I have this property in this place. And this is the address. And I know you walked on it. So he responded back and said, yes, I was like, can I, can we jump on a call? And he was like, yeah, sure. So I asked him, I was like, does this receipt make sense? Did you charge me this much? He said, well, I don't know.

It's an honest guy, an older guy. He was like, I don't know how much you guys talked about your contract, but I will never charge these prices. And this other receipt is not even for your property. This is for another property. So it turns out that he was charging me, giving, sending me receipts, because I'm out of state investor, right? He was sending me receipts off all the properties that he was working on.

And I was just paying for that. So I fired him. And of course, I stayed with the contractor. And he's a full-time contractor for me now. You have an amazing relationship. So even though everything went raw, I got my team from there. And he's made me billion. Wow. I learned. I learned and I have been reading ever since. Worked on all my properties. It must have been actually great, though, that he ended up being a lot cheaper than you thought, right? So whenever you used him again, it was actually more affordable. So how was it working with him? was he, because you said you work with him to this day, was he a large part of a lot of the projects that you went on to go and work on? Oh yeah. He worked with all my properties in Illinois. So I invest in Ireland and meet with Illinois, Cleveland, Ohio, Illinois and Georgia here. So all my

properties, majority of my properties are in Illinois. He worked on all of them. Wow. But that's how I scaled. And then, yeah. So scaling from that property after finding him, I was like, okay, I'm not going to find a deal. That's as amazing as the 15. unit, $52,000 property. That's three units that are placed for almost $90,000 after a few months of fixing it. So I went, I was like, okay, where else could I invest in? Of course, I went back to bigger pockets. And this time I'm so active. So I was like, what do I do next? So a lot of investors were talking about, especially California investors, so we're buying Cleveland. So I reached out to them, hey, my name is Yang. I'm a new investor.

I'm looking to invest in Cleveland. So I get a lot of responses. So we'll say, don't invest here. This is the A area. This is B area. This is C area. but the areas that they're recommending for me to invest in, I can't afford that. So I was like, I'll stick with a CD area and then grow up from there. And that's what I did. So I found this duplex in Cleveland that's listed for $68,000. So the owner has listed two of them, actually. So I wanted both of them because at this time, my cash flow and my property is Section 8, like all three units.

Cash flow is coming in. The bank is impressed with that. So again, I bid the documentation put all the numbers together, and I sent it the They were like, yeah, we'll finance it. And this was your second deal, right? Your second and third deal with the two deplex? Okay, cool. Yep, yep, yep.

So the bag was like, yeah, we'll finance it. Even if it's out of state, the numbers look great. $68,000. Mortgage was $2.50 something. I was two units when it was $7 something, so when the other one was six something. So I was getting like $13.45 or $1350 or something like that. And the tenant paid all the utilities.

I only pay water, zero. Okay, so walk us through this really fast. Your first property, you said you bought it for like 55,000, you fix it up. It appraises for 90,000. So you've built in $40,000 of equity. You're like, okay, I think I experienced probably the worst part of it. I'm going to do it again. And then you go and buy two duplexes and the bank finances those. And then just for reference, how many units did you actually end up adding to your whole portfolio in year one? In year one, I think about maybe at least seven. Wow. I think seven or eight. Yeah. First year of real estate investing.

with no foundation other than listening to bigger pockets and doing research and everything like that, listening to the great David Green and Brandon Turner. And you're like, okay, I'm going to do this. And then you go out and you buy seven properties. So you get that first one, two duplexes. Tell us about the next four really fast. Yeah. So the next one, I was like, okay, at this point, I'm getting cash flow. I'm getting a lot of cash flow. And I just got promoted like my job. So I was like, okay, from this, I want to scale more. What can I do? Right. So at this point, I'm looking at, I was like, how about I take the cash flow with a few months and buy a really cheap house? So I already build a relationship with that contractor.

So what I did was I found this property for like $15,000. It was also a full-closed property. So I got it for cheap. They probably got it for less than that, but I got it for cheap. And it was a five-bedroom two-bath. So my contractor charged me $9,000 to fix it up. Even at that point, I don't have $9,000. I think I have like $3,000 at that point that I have.

in my savings and the rest I was expecting it to come from the cash flow because I'm getting you know 2,000 here and 1,300 over there. So I was going to pay him in installing. So that's how I got that. Once I fixed it up, I rented it on Section 8 as well. And then I had equity in that property. So the bed was like, you can pull out equity from your property if you want to scale. That's how I did that. David, there's a term for doing that, right? When you like fix up a property and then you take the money out. Yeah. And there's also a method to scaling. Both of which which can be found at biggerpockes.com slash store by checking for the Burrbook or the scale book. Yama, I wanted to ask, did you get these ideas? Because you're kind of like tinkering with different

real estate investing strategies. You've got the arbitrage thing you talked about, rent by the room, section 8, a little bit of long distance investing as well. You've been working into this, right? Did all of this come from bigger pockets? Yes, it did. I know you're going to ask me in the end, what's my favorite buck, and I have it here. So this makes sense to me because I live in Atlanta. At the time, there's no way I can afford properties on land at that time. It's just with the credit school. So I could only afford outside. Like, it does have to be a background. And me learning that from Bigapah, I was like, whoa, a light boy when. I was like, of course, I can do it as a state. But a lot of people that I talk to, even I worked my colleagues,

they were like, there's no way you can, be the landlord's hard. You cannot fix a toilet while you out of state and I'm like, there is the method. I've already read and there's like, I've listened to multiple people do it. Why can't I do it? Well, when you mentioned that you found the better property manager that allowed you to scale, that's what I thought of was sometimes we just kick around trying to figure out this is going wrong, that's going wrong. And it affects your emotions. You just, you're not excited about buying more real estate because it feels like just nothing but problems. You got ripped off by the first contractor. That would make anybody want to quit, right? Like, once you get your heart broke, you don't want to

love again. You don't want to put yourself out there and find somebody else. So you just quit. But when you found the right person, it changed your process to be emotionally excited instead of emotionally discouraged. And so the core four, I'm sure, really helped. Can you remind me, where were you at with passive income at the end of year two? By year two, year two by 80,000. Because this April, this last April is my third year invested. So by 2022, I was making like 80,000. That's gross rents, correct? That's not your profit. No, no, that's no. That's profit. Wow.

You're making $80,000 profit after your second year. Yeah, that's profit. Wow, after your second year. What was your first year? What was your first year? I was close to like $6,000, $7,000. But then what happened was I got a package deal, so it escalated fast. With that package deal, some of the units torn over was like two weeks, three weeks.

So my contractors will actually go into the unit and leave there, their property, leave there. So they would stay there for that two weeks while they fixed me. So I was renovating houses faster. So what happened was the reason why I scaled faster. So I took that second job as a statistical program for LAPCO. It's a six-figure job. I did the interview.

I didn't think I was going to get it. The next day they called me, they were like, you're amazing. You can start on one day. I was like, okay. So I got that six-fillo jobs. I was dumping all that money into buying more estate. So I was buying packages at this point and just turning them on Section 8. So you're working a full-time job for the CDC.

you join, you have like a mastermind with people from the Bigger Pockets community. They're like, we all have two jobs. You should have one too. And you're like, all right, sure. You go, you apply. You get a six-figure job. And then they're like, yeah. So now you're making really good W-2 income.

And instead of spending it going out and just having fun, you're like, I'm just going to put it all into houses. Everything. Everything into houses. So I buy back-hage, five units, package. It's a six unit here, five single property. So I was just doing and sleep with them. Okay. All right.

So you said your first year passive income, six, seven thousand or something like that. Year two, it goes from $6,000 of passive income a year, right? And the year two, it's $80,000 of passive income. Yes. Are those numbers right? Yes. Okay. The reason why it got to 80,000 is because at this time, COVID happened 2021.

Everybody's talking about 2021, 2021, 2022. Everybody's talking about. Everybody's talking about. Certainly in Atlanta, everybody was talking about. I said social media. So my social media page, what I did was I created a new page, and I followed just in real estate. Everything that has to do real estate.

So I get a lot of people advertising about, you know, you can get a property. You can do Airbnb without owning a property. I was like, hmm, okay. So I looked at a few courses here and a $100 here, $150 here, and I joined these masterminds. I'm just going to jump in and do it. I credit an LLC just like the courses would say, and I approached apartment conflicts here.

So I was like, how about I get these in my LLC name and I can arbitrage it. So I got one unit, I arbitraised it and my two weeks, three weeks into it or three months into it, I got a booking for $40,000. So the company book for this guy, yeah, the company booked for him from New York. He's going to be working in Atlanta a whole year. So it's like $44,000. I was like, this is a dobrainer. So I got multiple now I have eight minutes in Atlanta.

That's really cool. So you're, let me just clarify something. When you said year two, your passive income was 80,000, was that 80,000 per month or per year? It's per month. So, oh my gosh. Yeah. So my section is we're bringing in about 15, 16,000, right? And then I was making my, yeah, I was making about 40-something thousand on, on Airbnb with the multiple properties. Wow. Okay. So, okay, so year two is 80,000 per month. That thought it was per year. And I was like, oh, 8,000 bucks a month. I mean, most people work for like 10 years to get to that level, just $8,000 a month. So you're getting $80,000 per month.

Yeah. And so you get into the Section 8 game, you get into medium-term rentals, and you do arbitrage. Any of those are your favorite, or were they all just, like, fun because it's all just new? Section 8 was more of a dream to give a family a home. the mid-time renters were more of me buying and scaling. So in 2021, when I was doing the arbitrage, I was like, okay, I already have a bad one real estate where I own my own properties.

How about I take this money instead of renting from apartment companies here? How about I buy my own apartment company? That's how the $80,000 came about for a month. So what I did was, I was like, okay, I'm going to take this method in a line of the arbitrage, but use the money to buy my own apartment companies. there's a single family and went to know Section 8. So I found this property that's listed for the same city that I invest in my section 8,

I got, I found this property that was listed for 145. It was abandoned for two years and the landlord just wanted to sell and get rid of it. So there was a fire incident that happened and he was going through a lot of violations. So he had the city remove most of the violation, but it was almost at the end. So when I came in, I offered 120 and he took 120 and he accepted. closing I got about $5,000. Again, I approached the bank and I told them the method that I'm doing. So I always keep, I had this relationship with the bank already. I always make sure they know what I'm doing. So I told them about the short-time rental, and they were like, that's not going to work in a

small city like this. What they don't know is that property works for me because at this point, I have experience with travel nurses. So that property was between two hospitals, one, one, one point six miles from another one hospital and one point two mile from another house. So it's perfect for me. I did the analysis, the market research, and most of the people that were renting to travel nurses there were like a month's path. So let's say a family has a basement and they were renting to travel to a shared room or something. I would say, well, if I have this property with eight units and multiple mixture of single one bedrooms and studios, I could do that too. So that's how I, the bed was like, we thought you were crazy. But this is.

This is an amazing number. So with that property that helped me scale to $20,000, because when I had my contractor going there, and he leaves one hour from that city, he came in there, he gave me a code for $85,000. So I gave it to the bank. They were like, okay, we'll finance it.

So, of course, I put 20% down. And my contractors, they gave me, they were like, it's a lot of work that it needs. What you can do, what we can do is waste, you know, to give you a grace to your three months. So you don't pay, you only pay interest. That's amazing. So my contractor was like,

We will move it. I will fix it from up and move our way down. So while they were fixing, but let's say they fixed two units, I'll furnish it and have nurses. I will list it and have nurses already come in. So by the time, it was almost complete. I was in paying, I was only pay interest, no mortgage. That property alone brings me $22,000. That's how I scale to the 80. Wow, $22,000 a month. A month. 22, $23, $24,000 here. Yeah, you know, just $22,000 to $24,000. Like, no big deal. Be conservative. Yeah. So my mortgage was just $1,200.

And then each unit, each unit, I'd pay my utilities for $1,200 with my mortgage. And each unit utilities is like $100, $110, $120, something like that. Okay, I've got two questions I want to ask. The first is, do you have one person managing all these assets in different locations, or are you doing that yourself? No. So Cleveland, I have a property manager. Cleveland properties, remember, they came in with tenant occupied already.

So I was managing for a while. But when I was scaling with midtown rentals here, I have to find somebody to manage it. So I have a property manager in Cleveland. And of course, in each of the cities, the closest cities will have one property to manage. Yeah, you really are following the long distance real estate. And then you manage those individual property managers, right? Oh, yes. Okay.

Next question. How are you running your numbers? You've got a different approach to this. And I'm curious if your data scientist's background led to you looking at things differently. But can you share what your system looks like when a property. comes your way to bank thinks, well, this is all the income in would generate, you're able to generate more than that. What are you doing differently? Yes. So I, this is how I run my numbers, right? If the numbers not make sense, I'm not going to push it just to say I have this unit. For Section 8, I want to get

at least 800 to a thousand profit, right? Because it comes with more work, more attention and everything. With short-time rentals, I was just looking to scale. So it depends on how much I furnish it. If I'm going to put $2,000, $3,000 or up to $5,000 per unit, I want to get at least $1,000. So with Atlanta, I could get all the way profit to $2,000, especially at the peak season per profit per door. So that's how I run it, depending on how the property will check with Section 8, Section 8, I'm looking at at least a thousand, does it need more work and I have to have paid a property manager, maintenance, of course, so I include all of that.

So that's how I run the numbers. Okay, and I'm going to assume you're also factoring in they need to cash flow more because in some of these areas you're buying in, you mentioned C to D areas. They're not going to appreciate as much and the headache factor is higher. So you have to make up for that by getting more cash flow to make the juice worth the squeeze, so to speak. And that's where you came up with these numbers, right? Yes. For people who hear this and they think, I want to do what she's doing, which I'm sure everybody's going to be thinking,

What are some of the challenges that people need to be aware of if you want to grow a portfolio the way you grew yours? There's so many challenges. You're going to go through crappy contractors. There's no investor that's going to tell you, oh, yeah, I have one contractor from day one. Never stole from me nothing. I went through crappy contractors to get there. Property managers, even though you have a property manager, doesn't mean you don't mind it. You still have to run the numbers to make sure this makes sense.

Because if I didn't do that, I wouldn't know that a property manager was still. stealing from me or even sending me receipts of other properties, right? It's not, it's not an easy way out. You have to figure it out. You have to run the numbers. And of course, you have to always analyze deals for it to make sense. If it doesn't make sense, you can't force it. There's also, I'm hearing you mentioned there's a lot of management that goes into the properties once you have them. You have to look very close, which I think you learned at a relatively early stage because in one of your first deals or the first deal, you were taken advantage of. Yes.

That separated you from this idea of passive income that you just bought it, forgot it, and there's nothing more to it. That rhyme. Maybe we need to start saying that. But you have to pay attention to your investments, that it's not a thing that runs itself. Like, it's often described that you buy a property, it's turnkey, it makes money, and you just go have fun on the beach or vacation everywhere. And your real estate pays for all of it. You don't have to still work. Has that been your experience or has it been more like it's a second job? Or a third job for Yamu. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, now that I've, well, not mastered it, but now that I've learned, I've gone through so much mistakes and I've learned, I can say I can go chill at the beach now.

So I've got everything in place. I have a property manager's in place. I've automated things. But at the beginning, no, you have to actually work the business to actually make it work. You can't just buy and just forget it. There's so many things that is involved with it. Yeah. So now I do daily, day-to-day stuff like I have a VA that go through my finance, find, the messages.

I have property managers. All I do now is sign leases and analyze this. So, Yami, you're, you know, obviously you came from Africa. I got to imagine that the tax code is very different there than it is here. So you come here, you're crushing it. You're making $80,000 a month. You have two full-time jobs. You're making six figures on the W-2 side of things.

Tell me a little bit about your tax situation once you actually started really making money. Was this like a big shakeup for you where you're like, oh my gosh, I have to pay the government money? Like, what was that whole situation like? Yeah, that's a really good question. Like, it's so shocked coming from African women off to Texas like that. So the beginning, I had already had my son. And because I wasn't making a much, I actually get to get a tax report. And I was like, this is amazing.

America is nice. At the end of the time you get money. Then I started in missing real estate and then when CPA tells me you're going to be paying the hour is $30,000. I was like, what? I was like, no. But in real estate, when you invest,

you get to say it was like, no, but you, not when you make millions. And I was like, what? That's when I realized, like, what my tax bracket was. And then he said, and also your W2 is not helping because you have two double twos that are paying your six figure now.

And I was like, oh my God. He said, if it wasn't for real estate, you would be paid. way more to IRS than what you're so the real estate is actually saving you and then I was like yeah this is this can't pay the iris this much so of course I let the four months ago I let the laco jocco and I just stick with the CDC one because now it doesn't really make sense coming having that kind of cash flow as soon that when I added my savannah properties here that are bringing me about 15, 16,000 a month in just savannah Georgia I was like it doesn't make sense for me to get two jobs

now so I let it go well it's also probably really hard to achieve real estate professional status with two full-time jobs and being the real estate thing. I know that there's always conflicting stuff on that. So this always reminds me of that. There's a meme out there that's like, it's the U.S. government. They're like, all right, you have to pay us taxes. And then you're like, how much? And they're like, we don't know. And it's like, okay, what happens if I pay you too little? And they're like, oh, you owe us a lot of money if you do. We'll find you. And it's like, what if I pay too much? And it's like, we won't tell you. You have to figure that out for yourself. And that's, that really is.

Exactly what the tax system is. It's like, you don't know until your CPA is like, here you go. You owe 30, 40,000 dollars. So you quit your job and did you figure out tax strategies or anything that was saving you money in the long run? Like, were you doing any kind of cost segregation or any depreciation to knock down your tax bill? Yeah. So my CPA that I hired does all of that for me. And we have meetings every quarter. So he tells me and project how much I'm going to be, um, um, um, um, I remember one time it was like, you have, they have about $40, $60,000 that you need to spend before November. And I was like, oh, okay. So I just dump it on a property. I bought a property for $40,000 more house. I fixed it up. I paid for $200,000. It sounds like Rob's tax strategy. He's just like that. I owe how much?

I'm going to go buy something right now. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, all right, let's ride it off, baby. It's a ride off. You guys ever seen that Schitt's Creek where he's like buying everything and they're like, you can't just keep buying it and saying it's a write-off. I'm like, it's a right-off. Who pays for it? The government. The government. The right-off people. I don't know. So let me get a recap of your overall portfolio, Yamu. You have Cleveland properties and those are mostly Section 8, correct? Okay, you have Savannah, Georgia properties. How are those being operated? So those are Midtown rentals. And then where else other than Savannah and Cleveland? So I have Illinois, I have Springfield, I have Champaign, O'Ban, Shambay. I have Champaign, all that sub areas in Illinois.

So I have like eight units here and there, five units. Those are all, so since I got the eight unit, it makes sense because I was getting so many inquiries or travelers and I'm not able to get them a point because it's all booked out. I was like, I need another one. So I got an apartment complaint. I got another one. I got another one. I kept going.

That's so cool. So I have a mix of Shetown Rentals. I have a mix of Vitam Rentals section 8. Okay. And how many units total are we at now? So I have 33 doors, including the one that I just bought here. So that's 34. Wow. So you have about 34 doors now. 34, I think, is what you said. When you were a kid, you sleeping on the floor, all you wanted was a bed of your own in a house. Yes. How does it feel to achieve what you've achieved? It's unreal. Like, it's sometimes like, this is me. This is, and sometimes, and this is why I gave a lot. It's just a way. It's just a way. when it comes to my team. So I know where I started, right?

It's just so real for me. But I always knew that I wanted just one house. I wanted a nice bed. I wanted to experience what other kids experienced that I did it. But I never knew beyond my imagination. This is all God's work. God put me in this place to actually buy houses, fix them up and give it to family.

That's why I said earlier I mentioned, Section 8 is more of me housing kids like me or someone who could not buy their own home. and then the September rentals just came into play. But it's so fulfilling for me. That's really cool. Is eight-year-old you proud of YAMU? Yes.

I am very proud of myself. I'm so grateful to God. Well, you mentioned the tips with keeping your contractor happy. I'd love to end with that. If you have anything you can share with the audience about strengthening that relationship with your contractor and keeping them happy, I'd love to hear it. Just to say this. My husband says, When my contractor calls, my phone ring, I'm so eager to take the call that anyone else

including him. I was like, well, he made me nearly as you did it. When they're walking, I buy lunch. When they send me pictures and I'm so happy with the work and I'm like, there's for me. So they're staying there. And also I stuck their fridges, buy groceries and send it because they stay there when they fix them the properties with his guys. So those are nice things.

And I upgrade his phone. He's an older guy. He doesn't like technology. APMX and just little things like that. That's really cool. Yeah, you got to take care of your contractors. I mean, finding a contractor that you click with is hard already, but finding a contractor that you can click with for five years is even harder.

And I think, yeah, got to keep them happy so that you can keep a lifelong of home building and home renovation going, you know? Well, Yamu, I think that we're all floored after listening to what you've done. I mean, you talk about it so nonchalant that you can keep. you're doing this well. I mean, the collective jaws of the bigger pockets sphere have dropped as they were listening to this. We will definitely need to have you back to dive deeper into some of this because there's so many elements from the power of your story to the way that you've scaled, to the passive income you're making, to the systems that you've set up, to how bigger pockets

helped you learn all this. I think so many of us listen to this and we only see the reasons that it can't work. And you came in and said, wait, you're going to give me all this information for free and you went and put it to play. And what do you know? You're one of the most successful investors that we have ever interviewed. And how many years has it been? It's going to be three years, April 17. Yeah, there's people that take three years and can't finish one of the books. I just like, I don't even know how to put into words what this has been. Like, it's just fantastic and I really appreciate you sharing your story. Are there any last tips that you'd like to leave with our audience who are struggling to get started?

It's just to start. And like, like Bigapucket said, analysis, paralysis. If you stay there, you don't actually jump and do execution. It's not going to work off. You can listen to on the podcast. You can read all the books. You can go to all the dead work and effects. You can do all of that, but actually actually kids, it's not going to happen. And I know it's scary, but you have to do it. Yeah. Well, when you grow up without a bed, I don't think you're as scared of failure as somebody who has never faced that level of adversity. And the littlest amount of rejection seems overwhelming. So, yeah, I just, I mean, who would have thought that those bed bugs would someday be a blessing? But like, maybe that could be the title of your book, how bed bugs become

blessings when you write it because you definitely need to. Robini, any last minute thoughts from you? No, I just wanted to thank you, Yamu. I appreciate the vulnerability and the openness that you had with this. I know it's like probably hard to talk about sometimes, especially, you know, coming on to bigger pockets. But I think there will be hundreds of thousands of people that listen to this podcast and their life will change because of your story. So I just want to thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you again to Yamu for sharing her story and her success with us. One other happy note to add here. Yamu welcomed a new baby girl to her family shortly after this interview. She and her family are growing and are all doing well. Well, I can tell you firsthand that this angry elf is now a warm

and cheery elf. And thanks to all of you for listening and for making the bigger pockets community, what it is. We're excited to bring you more new shows coming up and throughout 2024. And for everyone listening, have a wonderful rest of the year. This is David Green for Rob the No Longer Angry Elf Abasolo, Signing on. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calicoke content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only.

All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.