Built Through the Work
I’ve been in real estate for over 11 years, and most of what I know came from being in the work, not just studying it.
I didn’t come into this business with a background in investing, family connections, or a roadmap already laid out. Like a lot of people, I started by trying to understand how others were putting deals together and building something through real estate that I hadn’t yet figured out for myself. That curiosity led me into wholesaling, and wholesaling became the foundation for everything that came after.
It taught me how to source deals, analyze value, communicate with sellers, negotiate directly, understand motivation, and recognize when a deal made sense and when it didn’t. Early on I learned that information by itself doesn’t do much. In this business, execution is what matters. A lot of people know the steps. Fewer know how to move through them consistently and get deals across the finish line.
Over the years I’ve worked through wholesaling, acquisitions, fix and flips, buy-and-holds, multifamily, and creative finance. Each side of the business sharpened a different part of how I operate, but acquisitions, creative structuring, and mentorship have naturally become the strongest parts of my work.
Through acquisitions, I’ve spent years handling inbound leads, building rapport with sellers, evaluating opportunities, running comparables, estimating repairs, structuring offers, and negotiating directly to contract. That experience taught me how to identify real opportunities quickly and how to move deals forward without unnecessary back-and-forth.
Creative finance became part of that naturally. Not every seller fits a cash offer, and not every deal should die because of that. Over time I learned how to structure deals through subject-to, seller financing, lease options, assumptions, and hybrid structures when they made sense. I still actively use these strategies today where they fit and where the numbers support them, just like I do with wholesale, flips, and rentals.
Mentorship came from experience, not from setting out to become a coach. After years in the business, people naturally started reaching out with questions about finding deals, talking to sellers, structuring offers, and working through challenges they were running into. A lot of what I offer now came from those conversations and from seeing where people tend to get stuck.
I didn’t get into real estate to build services. I got into it to build through real estate. But after enough years in the business, enough deals, and enough people crossing paths, opportunities to help started becoming part of the work. Whether that’s mentoring, acquisition services, advisory, or training individuals, teams, and VAs, those offers are simply an extension of experience and the network built through it.
Most people who come across me have probably done so through networking, referrals, or real estate communities online. Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Connected Investors, and BiggerPockets have always been tools for connection, not a place where I built my life publicly. My life is lived offline. The internet has simply been one place to connect with people, exchange ideas, and build relationships in business.
Today, I still invest actively and continue using the same strategies I’ve built experience in over the years. The difference now is that I also help others apply them, whether they’re getting started, growing, or looking for stronger execution in their business.
Real estate has given me a lot because I stayed curious, stayed consistent, and stayed willing to adjust. Over time, the lessons, systems, and experience built through it have become useful not just in my own business, but in helping others strengthen theirs as well.
The Work Across Different Strategies
Assigning Property
Wholesaling was where everything started for me.
Back in 2015, I was working at Red Lobster when a former coworker came back to visit. We had worked the same job, in the same position, under the same circumstances. During the conversation, he told me he had just closed his first real estate deal and made $17,000. He explained wholesaling in simple terms: finding a property, getting it under contract, and assigning that contract for a profit without needing to buy the property yourself.
That was the first time real estate felt real to me. It wasn’t some distant idea or something reserved for people with money or connections. It was someone I knew, doing something I could understand.
A few weeks later, I was at my father’s barbershop and met someone who talked about leaving his job after reading Rich Dad Poor Dad. He recommended it, and I picked it up that same day. The book didn’t create the interest. It helped give structure to something I was already moving toward.
Not long after that, I attended a free real estate seminar. The paid workshop was far outside my budget, but it confirmed one thing: wholesaling was accessible if I was willing to put in the work. Instead of paying for a program, I started making calls to local brokerages to learn more. That led me to someone who was actively wholesaling, not selling courses, and willing to mentor me. That’s where I learned the most important part of the business first: finding opportunities.
Like most people starting out, the early stages came with missed calls, dead leads, buyers backing out, and plenty of trial and error. But that process taught me discipline early. I learned how to assess deals objectively, adjust quickly, and stay consistent without forcing something that didn’t make sense.
My first deal came about three to four weeks later. It was an off-market tear-down that the seller no longer wanted to deal with. I got it under contract and found a buyer three days before closing. The assignment fee was $12,500.
That first deal confirmed what I was beginning to understand: wholesaling was more than a way to make money. It was a foundation.
It taught me how to evaluate properties, run comparables, understand ARV, negotiate with sellers, build buyer relationships, and recognize what makes a deal worth moving on.
Those skills became the base for everything that came after, especially in how I evaluate opportunities, structure acquisitions, and guide others through understanding deal flow and execution in real situations.
Fix & Flip / Prehab
Wholesaling gave me the foundation, but fix and flips showed me what it looked like to take a deal all the way through.
The transition happened after one wholesale deal where the end buyer stood to make around $120,000 based on their renovation plan and resale. That was the point where I realized I wasn’t just finding opportunities, I understood how value was being created inside them. Instead of continuing to pass those opportunities along, I decided it was time to take on more of the process myself.
That shift led me into fix and flips and prehabbing.
My first project was a single-family property in a higher-end market that needed light cosmetic work. It wasn’t a full rehab. The strategy was prehabbing, making intentional improvements that increased the property’s appeal and value without overbuilding or overinvesting.
By the time I stepped into that deal, a lot of the skills were already there from wholesaling. Negotiation, running comps, estimating repairs, understanding ARV, and sourcing deals all carried over. What changed was the level of responsibility. Instead of assigning the opportunity, I was now responsible for the outcome from start to finish.
For that first project, I stayed involved daily. Not because things were going wrong, but because I wanted to understand every part of the process firsthand. That experience gave me a stronger understanding of construction flow, budgeting, timelines, buyer expectations, and where value actually comes from during a project.
The numbers on that deal made sense from the beginning:
Purchase: $105,000
Prehab: $15,000
Sale: $150,000
Profit: $25,000
What stood out most wasn’t just the profit. It was the lesson behind it.
I didn’t push the property to full ARV, and that was intentional. I learned early that not every buyer wants a fully renovated home. Some want a solid property they can still personalize.
This stage shifted my work from identifying value to actively building it, which later translated into how I handle acquisitions, evaluate renovation decisions, and support others in understanding real-world deal structure and execution.
Buy & Hold / BRRRR
As I moved further into wholesaling and prehabbing, it became clear that while those strategies created strong income, long-term stability in real estate came through ownership.
At that point, I had spent years finding deals, evaluating value, managing improvements, and understanding market movement. I knew how to identify opportunities and create equity. The difference was that I was still passing many of those opportunities on instead of keeping them.
That shift in thinking is what led me into buy and hold.
I started looking at deals differently. Instead of asking only what I could make at closing, I started asking what the property could produce over time through cash flow, appreciation, loan paydown, and equity growth.
The same advantage I had built through wholesaling carried over here: deal sourcing.
If the numbers made sense as a rental, I kept it. If they didn’t, I wholesaled it.
As I continued acquiring rentals, BRRRR became a natural extension of that process. Buying below market, improving the property, placing tenants, refinancing, and repeating allowed me to recycle capital and continue scaling.
What stood out most was how leverage and discipline worked together. Refinancing after stabilization allowed capital to come back out and be redeployed into the next opportunity.
This stage strengthened how I evaluate long-term value, structure acquisitions, and support others in understanding how to think beyond the initial transaction into long-term positioning and outcomes.
Multifamily
As my work in wholesaling, fix and flips, and BRRRR continued to grow, I reached a point where I wanted more consistency between closings.
That is what led me into multifamily.
The decision was practical more than theoretical. I wanted income that wasn’t dependent on completing a flip or closing a wholesale deal. At the same time, I saw how multifamily created stability through multiple units under one structure.
The first opportunity was a duplex in a college market. One unit was already occupied, and the other had room for improvements and repositioning. That structure provided immediate income while also allowing for added value over time.
Having multiple units under one roof also changed how I viewed efficiency. Instead of managing separate properties, systems were centralized, and variables were reduced.
I also brought in property management to ensure the asset could scale properly without turning into a second job.
This experience reinforced how scalability works in real estate, not just through acquiring more properties, but through structuring them in a way that simplifies operations while increasing output.
It also strengthened how I approach larger acquisitions, portfolio thinking, and advising others on building systems that support growth instead of complexity.
Creative Finance
Creative finance didn’t come into my journey as a separate strategy. It developed naturally through working different types of deals across wholesaling, flips, and rentals.
Over time, I encountered situations where traditional financing or standard cash offers didn’t fit. Instead of walking away, I learned how to structure around the deal.
Creative finance became a tool for solving those gaps.
It showed up in assignments structured around terms, seller-financed deals when appropriate, and subject-to or structured acquisitions when the numbers supported it.
It also played a role in keeping momentum during transitions between projects when capital was allocated elsewhere.
What stayed consistent was its function. It was never the core strategy. It was a way to expand flexibility and keep deals moving when a traditional approach wasn’t enough.
This strengthened how I think about structure in real estate overall, and how I help others understand that deals are not one-size-fits-all. The structure should match the situation, not the other way around.
Where Experience Meets Execution
Mentorship
A lot of people come into real estate with information but no real direction.
They’ve watched videos, read posts, maybe even talked to a few people, but when it’s time to evaluate a deal, speak to a seller, make an offer, or move something toward closing, there’s still hesitation.
At that point, the focus shifts from information to execution.
That usually looks like working directly through the deal itself, how it is being evaluated, how the numbers are being understood, how the conversation with the seller is being handled, and what the next step actually is based on what is in front of us.
Sometimes that means breaking the deal down from the ground up. Other times it means correcting one part of the process that is holding everything else back.
That can include comps, repair estimates, offer structure, negotiation approach, or how a conversation is being managed in real time.
The goal is not to add more information. It is to create clarity around decisions that are already in motion so the deal can move forward with structure and confidence.
Over time, this has naturally become part of how I work with people when they are inside real situations and need help tightening execution.
Areas mentorship usually covers:
- Deal evaluation and understanding value
- Running comps and estimating repairs
- Structuring offers
- Wholesaling fundamentals
- Buy-and-hold, BRRRR, and flip strategy
- Seller conversations and negotiation
- Buyer communication
- Decision-making through live deals
- Building confidence through repetition and clarity
Next Steps:
Acquisition Services
Finding good deals consistently is one of the hardest parts of this business.
Not because they aren’t out there, but because finding them takes time, consistency, filtering, relationships, and follow-through.
That’s a large part of what I’ve spent years doing.
Acquisition services are simply an extension of the same work I already do in my own business.
I source opportunities through direct seller conversations, on-market relationships, off-market outreach, referrals, and ongoing networking. Every deal gets looked at through the same lens I use myself: value, risk, condition, exit strategy, and overall fit.
This is not about sending volume.
It’s about sending opportunities that make sense.
Some people I work with need a steady set of eyes bringing them deals. Others need help filtering what they’re already seeing. Sometimes it’s helping wholesalers strengthen their pipeline. Sometimes it’s helping active buyers stay focused on better opportunities.
The goal stays the same: better acquisitions, fewer wasted reps, and clearer decisions.
What this usually includes:
- On-market and off-market deal sourcing
- Seller communication
- Deal filtering and prequalification
- Comp analysis and ARV review
- Repair and condition review
- Offer positioning
- Creative structuring where needed
- Buyer-fit alignment
Next Steps: