Why would I be in real estate selling homes? My parents moved once while I was a child, we moved from a 2 story walkup with about 700 square feet. This “home” was located on the South East Side of Chicago, near what use to be US Steel South Works. The plant is gone however I think the home is still there. There were 4 apartments in the building, ours was upstairs rear. In ’53 my parents bought their home a 3 bedroom one bath home on 4125 sq ft of LAND. House was about 1300 sq ft, a castle and it had a basement, unfinished, often flooded an all around interesting home.
I left there to go to college, lasted a whole year before University of Illinois determined I would not be an Electrical Engineer after all. I had a job working the day shift at the mortuary for almost a year before I went to work in the same plant my dad worked. That lasted about 5 months before I received that letter “Greeting from the President of the United States”, you have been drafted. I had enough of the Army (4 years of ROTC in High School and a year in College) so I joined the US Navy. Served 4 years at a job I volunteered for, (I know you don't volunteer in the Service, however, this was a “dream position”).
While in the Navy I got married, we had a baby and when my tour of duty was over, we moved back to Chicago where I went to work as a Computer Programmer for a major bank. I/we decided that we would buy a home instead of renting, so we purchased our first “castle” for $21,000. This is where I learned the value of a Home Inspection (we did not have one). Only the window sills in the Kitchen and Living room were rotted, did I say non-existent. A carpenter friend of the family got that solved for $100.00. Back then that was a week take home pay for me. I redid the Kitchen, new floor, refinished the cabinets, painted the entire home and finished the basement, fenced the yard, build a garage then we sold it 4.5 years later for $35,000. About $10,000 in profit, since I had “Sweat Equity” in most of the rest of the projects; bought a new home for $67,000 and sold it a year later for $76,000, the fever grew.
I was transferred to Atlanta Georgia, where I headed up a large project team, and when that ended started traveling, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina, Indiana and then Dallas Texas. While there I got real interested in Real Estate, how you could buy a foreclosure, do some minor work and Flip it for a profit. The Real Estate bug was going full force.
The traveling caused a marriage breakup and after all of that was over I met my current wife, the love of my life and we moved back to Atlanta. In a couple of years Mary began her Real Estate Career and I had the bug also. While still working as a computer consultant I attended Real Estate School, and when the timing was right I resigned the company I help build, joined up with Mary, we grew the business, lead of team of 7 assistants and a couple of buyer agents and the last 22 years are history.
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