On the latest episode of Stocks, Bonds & Cocktails, our host Marsha Barns sits down with real estate investor Erika Brown to discuss how to begin investing in properties.
This Week’s Cocktail Recipe: Tequila Sunset
Erika Brown started out with a career in finance, working as a banker. Upon relocating to the westside of Atlanta, she discovered her passion for learning about and showing properties to her friends and acquaintances. Realizing how much flexibility and potential income this new career field could offer, Brown then began to ponder which role in the sector would be the best fit for her. “I wanted to be in real estate, but I actually didn’t know if I wanted to be a realtor or not. I just knew that this was an avenue to be able to, you know, really impact my community.”
Today, Erika Brown has seventeen properties that she has invested in and recalls her proudest moment as being able to look back and see how her investments have impacted entire communities, transforming and reviving them for the better. She recalls the many steps that one should take in order to become a part of the industry, such as learning about when neighborhood association meetings take place in your neighborhood of interest, whether you’d like to become a homeowner in the area you’d like to invest in, as well as familiarizing yourself with the developers and new businesses that are set to make their way into that community. She also breaks down house hacking, a method that she says is the “easiest way to become a real estate investor.”
Erika Brown is truly motivated by her commitment to not just transform properties one at a time but to transform entire communities. She is able to consistently meet her investment goals by living below her means, focusing on one investment property at a time, intelligently utilizing her passive income to supplement her investments, and most importantly by continuing to challenge herself.
Listen as she shares what qualifications banks like to see from new homeowners and investors, how one can jumpstart their investment career using platforms like Airbnb, and who she believes are the most important contacts for new investors to connect with to get started.
Watch episode 3 of Stocks, Bonds, & Cocktails podcast and be sure to subscribe.