Al Edwards II - Beginning Your Wealth in Affordable Housing: A Motivational Handbook

This book is dedicated to my parents, Al and Lana Edwards for their support, dedication and profound examples of leadership.

Beginning Your Wealth in Affordable
Housing:
A Motivational Handbook

Contents

Introduction

After great reluctance and procrastination, Ive finally decided, in my limited literary capacity, to write a brief, constructive account of my experience in real estate; specifically, the 14 family residential segment. While the title has an ambitious tone, the real purpose of this short script is to answer the many earnest inquiries Ive received over the years about my foray into real estate investment. My reluctance is because I do not regard myself to be a considerable authority on many subjects, including real estate. I have, however, had a transformative economic experience with the vehicle of real estate at the fulcrum of it. Ive managed, with the combination of study and determined effort, to build a portfolio of residential rental properties whose value and positive impact has exceeded my aims and expectations.

The term real estate is a mouthful. I remind myself that it describes every patch of land not covered by water as well as many others that are. Since it represents practically everything a human eye can see, its essential that I clarify that this handbook covers only a tiny subset that I employed to begin my personal journey from financial obscurity to relative economic prominence. In the upcoming chapters, I will narrow the focus of this broad subject.

I also will confine my personal details only to those supportive of the techniques and disciplines that I believe are pertinent to the subject, for I do not wish for this book to be autobiographical nearly as much as educational. The only value in my personal accounts is in their demonstration of effectiveness of the information being put forth. I will use references to business publications that I utilized. Because I attribute a great deal of my success to the authors of personal-development material, I will leave a roadmap of these books and papers to you, the reader, and what I believe Ive gained in the process of integrating their readings into my philosophy and efforts.

My hope is to answer the general question of how I achieved success in the field of real estateat least in the segment I have worked in. I wish as well to demonstrate the dramatic difference it has made for me and how beneficial a shift from my prior path it has represented. Finally, I hope to provide tools useful to replicating and exceeding my own goals with a good chance of helping you achieve yours.

I must state in advance that this account may turn out to largely be a period piece. As Ive gathered relevant accounts from the nineteen years of my investing experience, Ive realized how some of the circumstances that gave rise to my results were unique or one-time events. As an investor in New Orleans, Louisiana, beginning in the 1990s, through the profound occurrence of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent recovery, there are elements of my experience that are simply uncommon, so I will normalize my accounts for adaptation to predictable circumstances. Ill also make an effort to identify characteristics of the New Orleans area that exist in most American cities, making them conducive for successful investment in kind. It is also true that my beginnings were set in a far different regulatory and political environment than that which exists today. I pledge to identify some of those differences and give my best opinion on how to navigate the challenges that the present-day investor faces, though they may not have troubled us twenty years ago.

If done correctly, one half of this book will review what I did both well and poorly, along with some results. The other half will be a prognostication of what can work going forward and the initial steps supporting a simple strategy to begin building wealth. The critical first six to twelve months can either set a trajectory for optimism and success or a frustrating and perilous struggle. Property search, evaluation, selection, financing and even partnership strategy can make or break an investment endeavor and few sources Ive found address these categories specific to affordable housing.

I hope to inject enough levity to freshen up the technical lecture segments, although theyre essential. Collectively, however, I wish for this effort to serve as an affirmation to any potential investor to move ahead, confidently inspired by the story of a modestly prepared beginner who succeeded while learning on the job.

Ill regularly remind you that this is merely a guide to a good start and a reference to other more comprehensive texts on the important subcategories you will benefit from studying. Other technically based resources will go more heavily into intermediate levels of equity investing, of which real estate is but a single segment. My main goal is to be encouraging with my personal story while providing the tools necessary to get you going. I didnt know any really successful investors whom I could call upon to give me vital instruction, and I know how valuable that can be. I also know how empowering asset ownership can be and how a productive future depends on your investment efforts. Most importantly, I wish to lead you beyond the pitfalls of a disastrous beginning. Id be thrilled to hear that someone has made successful strides while not making some of the avoidable mistakes I made along the way.

I caution that you will need more than this brief framework as an information source for a career in real estate investment. It stands to reason that a field so broad and lucrative should be rather involved, and this is but a brief handbook. I do hope to have this serve as the encouragement to explore and pursue residential investment property as a vehicle to wealth creation and prosperity.

Chapter 1

The Five Ws

I believe the who also can be you.

I will begin with a brief background of my story so that references I make throughout the book have context. I hope to confine my personal platitudes to the first and last chapters, in which Ill be hammering home the point that real estate is a terrific pathway to wealth development, especially when starting from nothing. As with anything, however, it is more involved than it appears at a glance and can be intimidating in the absence of guidance. I wish for this book to provide the confidence to pursue your goals through real estate and to serve as the blueprint to a great start for you as well.

In journalism, the five Ws are the first essential questions asked for the purpose of building any story: who, what, when, where, and why?

I ask and will answer these questions based on the emphasis I think matters most. I suggest that you refer to these answers when building your strategy to attack your respective market or the area you wish to invest in. While some details may seem incidental, I believe that the presence or absence of some of these characteristics would have significantly affected my outcomes, had I known to give them thought back then. Its hard to tell how different circumstances might have affected decisions made along the way or their effectiveness, so these things may be very important.

The who is myselfJust a guy named Al who was about twenty-seven years old when I began pursuing my interest in real estate. I had been on the premed track since childhood, having attended an allied health high school beginning at the age of thirteen. I had attended college in New Orleans following high school and earned an undergraduate degree in premedical biology. I wasnt a great student, but I was competent. I wasnt very inspired by my potential career path of medicine as a lab technician, teacher, physician, or anything else.