How I started investing and why I became a REALTOR®!
Everything real estate related in my life can be credited to a suffocating corporate job, pints of MGD, and a headstrong bartender. That’s right folks, my investment career, which lead to my career as a REALTOR ®, can all be traced back to a bar.
After I graduated University, I got a job in Kitchener in corporate sales. Although a structured corporate life was probably never for me, I spent 8 years in this job, and excelled doing it. This job gets credit for teaching me valuable sales skills, resilience, how to grind for what you want, and all the basics of conducting myself as a professional business woman. All of this however came with a lot of struggles and headaches… which led me to the bar, and many, many pints of MGD.
Turtle Jacks was the bar of choice, mostly because it was conveniently located in the same plaza as my office. After work, I would walk across the parking lot, sit at the bar, sip on my MGD, and discuss the days ups and downs with my work friends. Naturally, I started to get to know the bartenders. Insert Andre: a pivotal character in the story of Katie. Andre was a real estate agent early on in his career. He was always smiling and friendly, but carried an air of confidence (my way of politely saying arrogance), around him.
As I became more and more successful in my sales career, I started to look for a place to invest some of my money. Not knowing a whole lot about real estate, I reached out to Andre to discuss options and learn more. Andre is a dreamer, has big goals, and if you saw him today, you would know he is a do-er, and skilled at it. He was exactly the type of person I needed to learn from. Trusting in Andre and having a high-risk tolerance I jumped in head first. I started by investing a small amount of money into a few of his projects, flipped a few houses, and eventually bought some rental properties. We made many mistakes. Some small, and some quite large, but all of which are now funny stories that taught me not just about real estate, but about myself. At the time, the idea of what real estate could do for my life was just a dream, and today I’m reaping some of the rewards of it.
I LOVE real estate. I love real estate because of the feeling you get when you buy your first house. When I walked into the empty hallway of the townhouse in the first home I ever purchased, I burst into tears. Filled with pride, happiness and fulfillment, I will always remember that feeling. I love real estate because of the wealth you can build with it. If you’ve flipped a house, or sat on a rental for many years, you know what I’m talking about. I love real estate because of the freedom it provides me. Can I sell a house and travel for a year? Sure. Can I start a new career if I so choose? Yup. Will I have the freedom to retire at an early age? Sure will. I love real estate because of the amazing feeling that home provides. The powerful feeling of comfort, warmth, relaxation and happiness. I always have and certainly always will cry every time I sell a house that I’ve lived in.
With a passion for real estate and investment experience, it seemed like a no brainer to get my real estate license. I started up the courses, quit my job and moved back to Sarnia. I wasn’t ready to stop travelling quite yet, so I had to find an agent and get some investing done in Sarnia. After going through a few agents, I finally found Mike, who turned into Andre of Sarnia. I did a few projects here and spent an extensive amount of time travelling. After some time, I settled down in Sarnia, and it was time to call up Mike, sign up with a brokerage and get to work! Now, I am so excited to get to be an Andre to others!