BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - The “Dirt Floor to $80K/Month” Investor is BACK (and She’s Gone BIGGER!)

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Yamundow Camara grew up in The Gambia. After losing her parents at a young age, she was taken in by relatives who forced her to sleep on a dirt floor and treated her like a constant burden. Fast forward to 2024, Yamundow has over one hundred rental units and makes hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions) in passive income yearly. She STILL works a W2 while running her real estate portfolio. If she could do it, you can, too. If you missed Yamundow’s first episode, we highly recommend listening to it after this one. She goes into great detail on her troubling upbringing, moving to the US, and buying her first real estate deal. Now, she’s gone bigger…much bigger—scaling from thirty-two units to over 150 rental units in just over a year. And she’s not just in residential real estate anymore. Yamundow discusses the deals she’s bought, the hellish renovation project she went through, and her newest commercial real estate asset—a cash-flowing self-storage facility that takes just thirty minutes a week to manage! Yamundow is the epitome of “rags to riches.” We guarantee you’ll be inspired to invest after you hear this one! In This Episode We Cover: Going from complete poverty to millionaire by scaling smart in real estate Why Yamundow started investing in self-storage recently instead of rentals  The reason Yamundow STILL has her W2 job (and thinks you should NOT quit!) What to do when the city government is ruining your renovation plans Finding real estate deals for sale on…Facebook? Here’s how Yamundow does it Sponsoring orphans, writing a book, and Yamundow's big TV show dreams And So Much More! Links from the Show Join BiggerPockets for FREE Let Us Know What You Thought of the Show! Shop the BiggerPockets Bookstore Black Friday SALE Interested in Self-Storage Investing? Grab the Book, “Storing Up Profits” Find Investor-Friendly Lenders From Sleeping on the Floor to Making $80K/Month (in 2 Years!) Connect with Yamundow Connect with Dave (00:00) Intro (01:22) Sleeping on Dirt Floors After Losing Everything (04:55) 32 Units While Working a W2! (09:15) Inspiring Others to Invest (10:27) A Hellish 12-Unit Renovation (15:27) Financing and Working with Contractors (18:13) BIG Section 8 Cash Flow (20:54) Getting into Self Storage Investments (25:36) Supporting Her Family (29:58) What's Next? Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1051 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

Yamu Kamara grew up sleeping on a dirt floor in Gambia and overcame some incredibly difficult circumstances to move to the U.S. and start investing in real estate. When she first appeared on the Bigger Pockets podcast back in May of 2023, she had already acquired more than 30 rental properties across Illinois, Ohio, and Georgia. And today, Yamu is back to share more of her incredible story. Hey everyone, it's Dave. Yamu's first episode, if you haven't heard it already, is a number 761 back from May of 2023 and is one of the most popular podcast in this show's entire history. So we wanted to bring her back to catch up on the last 18 months of her investing.

And I'll give you a spoiler. She's still crushing it. I really think she has one of the most inspirational stories that we've ever heard on this podcast. And honestly, on any podcast that I've listened to. and the things that she's endured and overcome to build her portfolio, add some much-needed perspective to the entire real estate industry. Just a heads up. Before we jump in, YAMU does describe some of the abuse she suffered before she came to the U.S.

So please take care when listening. All right. Without further ado, here's my conversation with investor YAMU Kamara. YAMU, welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much, Dave. Thank you for having me. It's an honor.

Well, it's an honor to have you back. Your first appearance on the Bigger Pockets podcast was one of the most popular episodes we've ever done. And just on a personal note, I found it to be one of the most inspiring and interesting stories we've ever had on this podcast. So I'm super excited to have you back. For those of you who didn't hear YAMU's first episode, she first told her story back on episode 7.61. That was in May of 2023. But YAMU, maybe for anyone who hasn't listened to that episode yet, you can. just give us a quick background on your story, how you grew up and how you came to the U.S.

in the first place? Of course. So my name is Yamundau. Thank you guys for having me. It's an honor to be here, to be back here. I grew up in West Africa, a small country called the Gambia. Seven siblings. I'm the last.

My parents died when I was really young. My mom when I was two and my dad when I was 11. So in my culture, it's totally different from American culture. We usually live in extended families. So my sister was to get married and she had to take me and my brother with her. So I have to go live with her husband's extended family. So there was a lot of abuse, sexual, mental, physical, a lot of physical abuse. But yeah, we're not going to talk about.

I'm so sorry to hear that. I don't want to make anybody cry anymore. No, it's awful. Well, it's important to know where you came from. And I'm just sorry to hear that you had to experience that. Yeah. So growing up there, it wasn't easy. So for those of you know, kids that are abused, they usually have a lot of issues about anxiety.

So I used to pee a lot in bed. They wouldn't let me sleep on the bed. I would get cut boxes and sleep on the boxes, mosquitoes, you know. When I say floor, I mean like third floor, not like, you know, carpet here or anything. But yeah, that's how I grew up. One thing about me, God has always blessed me. I love school. That was my safe heaven.

So when I go to school, I'm that smart girl. but when I go home, I'm that abused girl, beatings. Sometimes I go to school with Max and blood stains on my body. Fast forward, I made it all the way to a genius high, high school, to college. And in college, I started a nonprofit organization that teaches girls how to code. And that kind of took off, and I applied for this fellowship called Mandela Washington Phil for Young African Leaders. That was something that President Obama started and named it after Nelson Mandela. I got selected out of 40,000 applicants to come to the U.S.

So that's how I came to the United States. I was placed at Northwestern University. And then I was flown to D.C. to President Obama. And then I was like, I can't go back to this. So I'm saying this so people don't feel sad for me. And I'm just sparing you guys the sad stuff, like, you know, the abuse in detail and stuff. But yeah, that was my life until I came to the U.S. It is.

It's an amazing story, YAMU. It's a sad story. Your story of resilience and perseverance is honestly incredible. I really recommend everyone go listen to the first episode. We go into a lot more detail. And honestly, you know, real estate feels inconsequential compared to this incredible life story that you've lived. But we are here to talk about you as a very, very successful real estate investor. You know, this Yamu shared with us the beginning of her life.

But as of 18 months ago when you were on the podcast for the first time, you had already gone from someone just gotten a fellowship to come to the United States. And relatively rapidly, you acquired 32 rental units, right? Like, how long did it take you to get those first 32 units? So I'll say the first few years, maybe like two years into the invest in real estate. So I started investing in 2020. And right now I'm at 156, actually. Oh, what? 156?

Yeah, 156. So, 59 rentals, 59 residential, and then I bought a South Strait facility recently. So mostly now I have crossover to commercial deals. So by 12 units, 10 units, 20 units apartment. And yeah, I bought a self-story facility 95 units, probably like the beginning of the year. Well, I want to get into that. But let's just, I want to get everyone else back up to speed because you got those first 32 units, but and this was mostly just through hustling, right?

Like I know, like me, we share a data science background. So I know you were working for the CDC and data science. Are you still doing that or are you full time in real estate now? Yes. I'm full time in both. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. Yeah.

Like this is a thing. Why would I leave a 250-something thousand job? Like that's why I tell people like you don't have to leave. I mean, at the beginning it wasn't that amount. Like now I'm a senior level. But before I wasn't that. Like, you guys know I started with only $8,000 when I started investing. That's all I had then.

But as I go, I progress. I'm taking all the money I'm getting from my CDC job. It wasn't much. But I'm buying more properties as I grow. So I went from $30,000, $40,000 property, 50,000 property to $200,000, $300,000, have a million, now a million dollar buying properties in that price range. But this is what I tell people, do not leave your job. Like, one rental property or two rental properties is not going to,

have you go on vacation and all these lovey vacations you see on social media say, oh, I buy a rental property. Now I'm financially free. No. No, we'll pay for one night of your hotel room, basically. Yeah, because when the maintenance hit, like you could be cash flowing for six months straight, and then you have a maintenance that's like going to wipe out all the cash flow that you had. So I don't like people telling people, well, I'm going to teach you how to invest in real estate

so you can leave your 9 to 5. Like, if the 9 to 5 is not a hustle, keep it. If it's not a problem, keep it. If it's stopping you from scaling, that's a problem. That's different. But for me, for you, you already know how data science work, like computer programming work, especially in a workplace. It's not like you're sitting nine to five to do a work.

For me, working for CDC, it's most like, oh, I will work on a project. But they want me to work on a project that when I build it, they're going to use it for the next six months. So I'm really just doing maintenance work after the framework is done. So for me, why should I leave my job if I can do it in my sleep and still make money? So a lot of people ask me, so why are you still working for CDC or why you still have your 9 to 5? Like, why not? Yeah, I'm totally with you.

I think that it's one of the most underrated and misrepresented part of this industry is that working a full-time job makes investing just so much easier. Obviously, you have a very high-paying job, and I assume you get some benefits from that too, which is great. But even if you have an average paying job, it just allows you to take more risk. It is easier to get loans. And I'm completely with you. I've been investing for 15 years. I still work full time. I invest in real estate at the side.

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B-P-P-Pod. That's n-R-E-I-G.com slash B-P-Pod. Welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast with investor Yamu Kamara. Yamu, I'm so impressed by your story, but I want to know what's happened since the Bigger Pockets podcast because it was super popular. Like, did things happen after you were on the show? Did people start reaching out to you or what happened? A lot of people reach out to me. A lot of people say, you made me cry, you did this.

I think you made a lot of people cry in a good way. It's an amazing story. It's inspiring. But to answer your question, a lot of things change. People reach out to me. A lot of people tell me I was inspired. You changed my life. I went ahead and went back to investing.

Now I'm not scared. A lot of people tell me I've been investing for so long and I stop. But after watching your story, like why stop? Like, why not go? So I get a lot of positive comments. A lot of people reach out to me, especially people that connect or understand. time I sort of has been through what I went through or something similar, they did reach out. But yeah. That's so exciting. Well, you deserve it. That's great. It was exciting. Yeah. But when it comes to real

estate, I continue buying and never stopped. I'm still buying. Oh, it sounds like you went from in just the last year and a half. You went from 32 units to 156, you said. So let's just start back in May of 2023. What deal did you do right after, you know, you're 32 units, you're on the podcast. What happened next in terms of your portfolio? So what happened is I found this deal. So you guys already didn't know I do a short-time, mid-time rentals, and sectioning. I found this deal that was like 12 units.

I don't know what it is with me and 12 units, but I always find them incredible. It's your magic number. Yeah, so I found this 12-unit department, and I'm walking on it. The way I found it actually was a distressed property, right? A lot of people underrate the Facebook market. I found it in the landlord group. So the person that listed it, like put it that day that he has multiple properties that he's selling. But when I saw it, I had seen everybody messaging and say, I'm interested.

Here's my number. I'm interested. Here's my number. I did the same, right? But the person is not responding. And I was like, this person is probably an investor who's busy doing other things, probably did not even come back to the Facebook. So what I did, I was like, okay, I'm a data scientist. I know how to find people.

What can I do? So I went and found out research his name. found out that he has a property management company as well that's attached to his name. I called a property managed company. I was like, hey, I'm looking for this person because the name was already on Facebook. So I gave them the person my number and I got a call from the owner. I was like, how did you find me? And I was like, well, you posted on Facebook.

You never said anything. Yeah, did you want me to find you? Yeah, I tried to sell a deal. Yeah. So what, and let me tell you, I went under contract, did got my scope of work for my contractor. He listed it for like five something. I got it for 480.

It apprates for like 660 as is. Now it's like 725. Yeah. But listen, it came with a lot of problems, right? It needed a lot of work. But I got it under contract, bought the property, and I still go back on the Facebook page, and there's still messages, new messages of people say, I'm interested. Hey, I'm still waiting.

That's to show you, like, if you really want this, like, you have to look at it as a business. And don't under the right Facebook market, because you can find deals there. But that's how I found that deal. So everything was going smoothly. It turned out the property had some violations, right? So I already know this, right? I'm doing a gut rehab. So I know the violations, I could take care of them

because it's smaller things that the tenant had reported in some of the units. But the owner never fixed those. So when the city was like, okay, do those things. The units that were reported that had issues, fixed them, and they will come and do inspection. So the building and zoning came for the deck. The plumbing inspector, all the inspectors came. And it was more like

main bumping head, basically. Like, I'm never going to, I'm not going to let anybody move into this unit to this house looking like this. And I was like, it's been like this and people lived in there. I'm actually going to be renovating everything. When they came, they were not focusing

on the things that were in hand. They were like, first of all, the plumbing inspector was like, remove all the water heaters from the stairs. The other one was like, have an engineer come and redraw the whole building. Everything needs to be put apart. We need fire rated doors.

Fire data doors are like expensive. Like super expensive. Yeah. There was like 24 fire rated or we're on this. So we started, I started doing, I was like, okay, fine, I'll do those. I did them. They came for inspection. They went ahead and added more stuff.

And now they came with the fire marshal. Oh my God. I never knew the fire marshal will do any inspection on a property if there was no fire. The fire marshal came put exercise, put this. Oh my God. It was so. I used to cry. But because I'm used to just buy the property, fix it up, rent it out, slow motion, like slow, smooth, right.

But this wasn't. Is it just because it was a commercial deal and there's like different regulation for commercial over residential? Yes, it was a commercial. So I never, I never experienced that before. My other commercial deals needed minor repairs inside interior, wasn't involved with the city. This time I'm under the city's radar. Listen, I used to cry at night just thinking about this. But the inspiring part was I have auto design a contract.

with a solar company that I'm going to host 12 of their guys. So the property is already going to cash flow when it was ready. Because guess what? Each of the unit I was going to rent for 1,800. So that was a lot of money. I was kind of, you know what, let me do all of this because I'm already in it. I came back out, right? So I fixed all of that.

I didn't want to lose the contract. But every time they come for inspection, they find something else. The fire marshal was dragging me. Afterwards, the city was actually helping me. Like, I made friends with the city. And when they did the planning inspection, the building and zoning guy was like over here. They're going to come. They're going to say something about it.

But what we don't see, we don't know. So don't pull permits on this until we're done. We give you the certificate of occupants because you did amazing. Some of the landlords will never do this. Like your property, you turn it around, you listen to me, you listen to everyone else. That's how I got that property out. So afterwards, I got my certificate off and see. And I almost lost that contract, actually.

But yeah, it turned out great. Yeah. So can I ask you a few questions? Because, I mean, I'm glad it turned out, but that sounds like a pretty rough situation. It was rough. Yeah. Yeah. How did you finance this deal in the first place?

Like, what was your plan for the purchase and financing it? And how are you paying for the renovations? Yeah. So the bank was financing everything, right? So I, not everything. I mean, I have to put a percentage there. I think I put like 15% or something like that for purchase price and renovation as well. But when the inspection happened and the.

I assume your renovation budget just snowballed, you know, just got bigger and bigger. Did you have to go back to the bank to get more money, or did you have enough plan that you were able to cover these new expenses? One of the expenses was the electrical. The plumbing, I knew I was going to buy plumbing already. It was already in my, yeah, but they wanted me to redraw the building. So I have to fight them to say, I can't redraw the building. If I redraw the building, where do we put the water heaters?

because this is designed that way. So I have to go back and forth with them. So if I have to redraw it, I would have paid thousands and thousand to redraw the building and reinstall the water heater somewhere else. So the water theaters are still under the stairs. The amount of money that I had to spend was the electrical, the exit signs and all of that. And I strike a deal with the electrical to pay, to pay, I paid him, I think he charged me like 15, I paid the fourth half and the other half when it's already rented.

So I said, can I pay the rest when the rent come? Because he was like, I've never seen this. He's worked with the city, but he's never seen the city do this to anyone, like all the extra stuff. Like, he said, I work with all the landlords here. I've been working with the city, but I've never seen them go to this mind. The thing, like, I was getting so, like, yeah. I'm so sorry. That's terrible.

That happened. And there's a reason why, because one of my contractors had one of the inspectors said, do you know how much money she's going to make on this? They're not enough 12 units around this area. And then my contractor was like, from then on I knew it was going to be bad. Because they were just mad that you were going to make so much money off it? They were counting in my pocket. Yeah, they were seeing how much profit they could eat into, I guess.

Yeah, I don't know. Oh, that's too bad. Well, I'm glad it worked out for you. And that's impressive. Like the way it shows how much you get from relationships. One, that you were able to sort of win over the city in the long run. And that helped you ultimately stabilize this deal. And two, being able to work with the contractors and having strong relationships with

them allowed you to be a little bit more creative with some of the financing options, rather than having to come out of pocket or seek more financing, you were able to, you know, strike up something that worked for both parties. Contractors obviously getting more work, not because they wanted it, but because of this unfortunate situation. And we're fortunately willing to take some payment a little bit later. Yeah. Okay. So that deal. When did you buy that at the beginning of this year? So that was last year. Okay. So that was in 2023. What about in 2024? Have you, Have you done any deals this year? No.

So during 2020, I bought another 12-year right after while I was renovating this. Of course you did. Right? Another deal. Like, I'm not letting my money sit in the bag. Like, every deal teaches me something new. So I'm not living in my money sitting there while I wait for this renovation to be done. I knew that, okay, now that I've taken care of everything, I went ahead and bought another 12-unit apartment.

This one is a brick-old, or complete, both of them are brick-building. But I'm obsessed with brick-building. But this is a 12-un. and I needed it to stabilize. I needed something that would like just bring cash flow. And what does that is Section 8. So the property doesn't need a lot of work. It's amazing, beautiful.

Property is ordered to rent it. So when I found this one, this one I've already been wanting it a year prior. So I made an offer, but somebody made a better offer and got it. They got it under a seller financing deal, the person that I bought it from. So what happened was they had a seller financing, but he didn't make a balloon payment or whatever payment. He didn't meet the payment. So he lost it. But then he was trying to sell it so he can make a profit, pay off the seller, and go away.

So they were going through court process. I don't know if the owner was going to sell. My agent called me back and said, guess what? I'm at the hospital because her mother, her grandmother was at the hospital. So she was there. She got up. She saw a miscall, called the person back is the owner of the property. He said, hey, in court, I saw that your client wanted to buy this property.

He said, with the same terms exactly the she had offered before, I'll take it for that. and I bought the, I was like, look at God, it came 360 back to me. Yeah, right. Patience. Yeah, rented Section 8. I closed within weeks because I was already. I had already told the bank and I told her, yeah, we lost the deal. You know, they ought to give me approval and everything, letter of intent. But then when I came back and I told the bank, guess what, the property is back? And this time, I think it's to stay.

They were like, okay, finally. So it's already underwritten like the bank had already done all the paperwork. Yes, yes. Oh, that's a little silver lining to the story or like getting the run around is the second time. It was a little easier. Yeah, the seller had all the documents already. And we were like, yeah, we were to move. The same amount of money that I offered with the guy.

That's how I got it. And Section 8, 1,200 for the 2-bedroom, 900 for the 1-bedrooms. My goal is to do mid-time rentals later on, but it's cash flowing nicely. Oh, great. Yeah. So my mortgage on it is like 4,300 and something. imagine that over 7,000 cash flow. Yeah, wow, good for you. That's super cool. Another great deal. Yeah. It's time for one more break, but when we come back, I'm going to ask Yamu about how she moved from her successful portfolio in residential deals into self-storage in 2024. We'll be right back.

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increase the likelihood of claims. And traditional insurance companies aren't always built to handle these claims quickly or smoothly. That's why more real estate investors are turning to steadily. They focus exclusively on landlords, whether it's a single-family rental, a burr-builder's risk policy, or midterm holiday guests. You get fast quotes, flexible coverage, and protection for property damage, liability, and even loss of rental income. Now is the perfect time to review your rates and coverage.

Get a quote in minutes at biggerpockets.com slash landlord insurance. Steadily, landlord insurance designed for the modern investor. There are two kinds of real estate investors, those who have reviewed their insurance and those who think that they have. Most don't realize their coverage wasn't built for how they actually invest. Vacancy periods, rehabs, short-term rentals or LLC-held properties. These gaps surface only when filing claims. That's why investors work with NREG. They specialize exclusively in real estate investors,

understanding portfolios, risk at scale, and cash flow protection. One claim can erase years of returns. If you own a rental property, don't assume you're covered. Have NREG review your insurance with someone who gets investing at NRE.com slash BPOD. That's N-R-E-I-G.com slash BPPod. Let's jump back into this week's investor story on the Bigger Pockets podcast. Earlier, you said that, you know, you've gone from, I think you said, like,

58 or 59 residential units, but you just bought a self-storage unit. If you're doing so well in residential and 12, you were just like, you could have just stuck with only buying 12 units. It's your lucky number here. Why'd you move to self-storage? So I always wanted commercial. I eventually wanted to get into commercial. Like, why not?

But that doesn't stop me from buying. in single family homes and small multi-family. I'm still buying. I just bought two and I'm renovating them. But what happened was I have been reading about self-storage for the last two, three years. Like since 2022, I've been reading, researching. I wanted it so bad. Can I just ask why? Like, why self-storage? What about it was so interesting? Because I don't have to deal with toilets. I don't have to do with a lot of maintenance. I don't have to deal with, you know, tenants in that capacity. I don't have to deal with check-ins and checkouts or my team doesn't have to deal with it. But I wanted something that would that will be like low maintenance and also it's a cash cow yeah okay so either

either way it wins like it's all part of real estate but I wanted to scale I just don't want to do the same thing so I I've been reading about it every time I make an offer somebody will make a better offer and get it and sometimes sell a financing deal and then it wouldn't go through because of underwriting but I found this self-stray facility in the same town that I have some of my properties in. I already have a team. I have brought a permit. Yeah. It came in the market. The person was doing a 1031 exchange. Probably bought it like seven months prior before I bought it. But they wanted to buy like a 20 unit apartment of something. So I was doing a 1031 exchange. And I got it. He have like half acre of land that comes with it. Already have two tenants that one of them had a boat on

the piece of land. And one of them have a was that thing called a little like a trailer that you put the boat on? A trailer. Yeah. A trailer. Yeah. So I have a little trailer. Yeah. So I have a I was like, okay, so this could give me an opportunity to not just the 95-unit sales story facility, but also the piece of line I could redevelop it. And I can just put gravel. I can rent it all out. And that's what I've been doing. Systems in place, hands off. But that too goes to the problem, right?

After I bought it, I realized that the owner was dealing with break-ins, a lot of break-ins. And the commerce were not working. So what I did is I added 16 new commerce that pick-up animals, even like a small small. cat, the cameras will pick them up. So it's more like problem solving. But a lot of people are like, well, why don't you have your team do it? No, I want to master the art of doing it myself before I hand it over. So I wanted the in and out of the business. Now, the theory part, I've read all this book. I've done all of this. But yeah, when I get excited about real estate, I talk too fast. So hopefully everybody's understanding me. No, no, this is great. I just have a lot of questions.

You're already filling us in on a lot, but I have more questions. So it sounds like, you know, you got rid of the toilet part, but you inherited more problems. Now that you've stabilized it, is self-storage actually less property management and less work for you overall? Yes. Yes. So you got what you want. It just took a while. I got what I wanted.

It took a while. I still have, so I still, with the cameras, instead of having my team follow up and stop the cameras attached to my phone and my property manager. So when I see a d-d-d-d-de-I, I could check. And if it's a human being and it's suspicious, I call the police. Oh my God. So we did that for a couple of times. Yeah.

How many times have you had to do it? Maybe like four times that the police were caught somebody. But, you know, with criminals. So this is a really big problem. Yeah, it's a big problem in the area. And I called all the story facility. They said, well, there's nothing we can do because they will rent out this unit and go get in their unit and break into the other unit next door and steal.

And they'll keep going. So they would just, you know, do whatever. They would come with their tools and stuff. So what I did was every time I see suspicious, anything at any time, I call the police because with these people, criminals, they usually have contact and the world will go around that, hey, they call the police. Don't go to that place. Yeah. Yeah, these owners don't play. So. Yeah, you got to make them afraid of you, essentially. Yeah. Yeah, the police arrested them in action, like three, three times now. And it's all different people. So now it has East down. Thanks God, hopefully it doesn't happen again. But this is just to tell you, everything is going to come with a problem. As a real estate investor is to fix problems.

As an entrepreneur period, it's fixed problems. All right. Well, it sounds like you're mastering this. Congratulations on another problem solved. That seems to be something you're quite good at. I do want to ask you a little bit, Yamu, about the future and what you're planning. But before we do, I was re-listening. It was the second time I've listened to your previous episode.

And you said something about how one of your main motivations, once you, you came over the U.S., you decided to stay here to not go back. And one of your motivations for getting into real estate was to help support your family back home. Have you been able to do that? And what has that support looked like for you and for your family? Okay. So let's define family here. I'm only supporting my immediate family, like my sisters and my brother.

So I get, oh, I'm going to cry. So, all right, for those of you who haven't, and I probably haven't said this at the first interview, but in the extended family, like I said, it was a lot of abuse, but in the extended family, like everybody could have hit me, like anybody could hit me. And I don't want people to use this as like pity or something. I just want you to see where it all started. So I still get messages from people that had done stuff to me. Like, oh, we're suffering, we're not having this, we haven't eating for this so long. At the beginning, if you know, like, somebody who's abused or already grew up in that

environment, you always go back to the abuser. So at the beginning, even when I came to the U.S., I still, like, send money and do stuff. But now, with a therapist, has helped me how to navigate what's help and what's still abused, like, mentally, because that's how I grew up. So that's all I know. So I would still get messages from, oh, we want, I'm like, we want, oh, help us, we don't have this. We haven't had. Oh, my kid hasn't gone to school because school fished. And I remember, I'm like, you were the same guy who used to bit me until you leave

Max on my face. Did you forget, like, all those stuff? Or you're the same person that did this or cut my hair or beat me because of no reason or did this to me. And I'm like, you forgot all of that. And you're asking me to send it. Before I would send, like, I would send the money, but now I only same to my family, like my sister, my brothers, and my other family members, not the family where I experience that abuse. But yeah, I'm trying not to cry. I'm sure, I'm sure an incredibly painful memory and challenging because I would imagine that now that you're in this much better financial position, that I'm sure all sorts of people start asking you for things and they didn't treat you right.

And you seem like a very good person. And I'm sure it's difficult to like establish those boundaries and be able to help the people who have been important and supportive of you and not, you know, just trying to manipulate you now that you've found success. Well, I'm excited for you that you've been able to help your brothers and sisters. That must be a really good feeling. Yeah. It's a good feeling to help out.

even with them, I still wanted to help, but I wanted to make sure it's not like, oh, you still have a hole on me or like, I'll help out when I have to, but when it's entitled, like, you need to understand that this is the same people that will tell me, don't come home if you can't do this, or I'm sitting down, I'm the breadwinner, and that they will send somebody to turn off the lights because I didn't buy the cash power or, you know, so yeah, it's, it's, I'm still doing therapy and all that now. I feel better. I don't cry much about other things, but I still have PTSD. And a lot of people ask me, well, when are you going back to Africa? My experience for me is like when I go, I have to create my own reality. Like, I don't want to revisit that. I want to

have create my own experience of going back to Africa. Good for you. Well, I'm sure it would be very difficult and take quite a lot of time to process everything that you've been through. But it's incredible what you've achieved given, given the very difficult circumstances that you've came from and still have to deal with even being in the U.S. It sounds like there's still a lot of challenges that you're overcoming. All right. Let's turn to the future. I know this is, I'm sorry to bring it up.

I know it's a very emotional topic. It's okay. It seems like an important part of you and your story. But let's talk about the future. You've done so well for yourself over the last couple of years. What are your goals? Like you've done so much. You have hundreds of units.

you still motivated and what are the things that you're looking forward to in the coming years? So I've been doing a lot of charity work. My nonprofit organization now I fully registered it and everything. I went from sponsoring five offerings to 17 now. So that's something that's like a passionate project. And I've done a charity event, two charity events actually for offerings in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, where I teach real estate and people in terms. And people, intern. So I find a nonprofit organization that is working in ground with these people are orphans

and I just, I didn't even contact and I just research, take their website and put it on my page. So people go donate and then you send us a receipt and we add you to the webinar. So those are things I'm doing now, but when it comes to buying real estate, I just purchase two single family homes for $50,000 each

of them because I have this amazing contract that I just won with a windmill company. Oh. Yeah, the windmill company is actually in Europe. And they're sending their guys to work here. It's probably where I am in the Netherlands. We got a lot of windmills here. Sort of invented them.

Listen, they are paying me the money. I need more in that area, yeah. Wait, because they want to house people who are working on wind projects basically? Yeah. It's called Robotics Something Windmill, the company. So they literally would house three people, four people at a time, but pay me like $60,000 in advance. Wow. How do you find these people? Like, how do you find these companies? So all the companies that I have, because I'm a people person. So I know how to have great conversation and also tap into opportunities. So the first one started is the solar company that I told you guys about. That one started because the manager booked one of my units as the Airbnb and then liked it. And I was like, hey, I like this a lot. Do you have other units that you rent? I was like, well, actually, I'm renovating a 12 unit or I'm renovating whatever unit I was like. It was like, well, I had.

I managed these guys and they're coming over here for a couple of months. And at a time, with possible extension, can I see those places if they're done? So one of the places that 12 unit that I was renovating. And that's how I got into that. And yeah, they signed 24 months contract, 1,800 a unit. And then they connected me to the windmill guys. The windmill guys also connect me to a company that does installation for them. So I just get collecting this.

It's God. I don't think it's me to say. I think it's God. No, I understand what you mean. But you've obviously, you've done a lot and made the most, absolute most of the circumstances. Like, you know, like people say, you don't, you get to pick what cards you get dealt. But you've played them very well. And you've made the absolute most of it. And it just shows like your personality and your, your willingness and ability to build strong relationships just keeps coming back and benefiting you in so many different ways. throughout real estate. I think that's a story and a skill that everyone listening to this can really try and emulate because it's hard to put your finger on, but it's amazing when you develop that

skill, how many opportunities start to come forward to you. So, sorry, I interrupted you. You were talking about your goals. I was just curious how you found this awesome thing. But so tell us what you're going to do next. So a lot of people reach out to me after my podcast. You should write a book. Your story is so inspired. And I'm like, I haven't even told quarter of my my story. If I have to tell all my story, then yeah, I need a book to write. It's going to be a long book. Yeah. Yeah, it's not a long book. So I'm looking toward, well, I want to write a book that's going to be more of inspiration and also real estate, but actually how to do it. So that is something I want. And I'm going to manifest this. I want a TV show. Cool. Not a TV show. Like,

yes, I'm going to manifest it here. So millions of people are going to hear and pray for me because I really do want representation. So, for example, like the H.T.B. Show, not to bash the H.T.B. shows shows we have now. It's mostly like, oh, a dog walker and a primary school teacher or a kindergarten teacher approve for $1 million home. And I like that. How is that realistic? And that's just entertainment. It's not education. Yeah. I want to teach through education. So I want to show like a normal couple that earns $60,000 a year or $70,000 a year, how to buy a rental property for $40,000. Not in your state. If it's, your state possible, yes. But if not, just know that it's out there that you can do it in another state.

So like, I want to show that will show that. And also I'm a numbers person. I want to show you how to calculate it, how to find the property, how to build a team, how to calculate, how to check the AIV, how to check the cash flow, if it's going to rent on a lot kind of step. So that's what TV show I want. Well, you already had me sold saying you wanted to help normal people buy rental properties because I love that. But you throw some data and numbers in there. You know I'm watching that TV show. All right. Well, let's do it. Somebody help me. If there's a producer here, please help me. I don't know anyone, but maybe someone listening will do that.

Well, Yami, thank you so much for joining us. This was a lot of fun. It's great to hear how successful you've been and how much your portfolio has accelerated in the year and a half. You were on the first show. And hopefully we'll have you back for a third episode sometime in the near future. I can't wait to hear what you do next. Thank you. Thank you again. And everyone listening, if you haven't listened to YAMU's first episode, I highly recommend now that we're wrapping up that you go check it out. Again, it's episode 761 from May of 2023.

Thanks again, Yamu, and thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the Bigger Pockets Podcast. We'll see you next time. 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.

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