While looking for land to buy in Southern Alabama in June of 2018, I bought my first rental in Alabama. It was a duplex. This brought me to five doors. In November of the same year, I bought a four unit in Southern Alabama, which brought me up to nine doors.
In May of 2019 DLBratton Enterprises bought two building lots in Holiday  Island Arkansas. These rentals, plus my side hustle allowed me to take early retirement from the federal government. In January of 2020, I quit my job with the government and have been an adjunct professor and real estate investor since then. February 2021 was when I opened an SDIRA and started loaning money on flips. That is an ongoing venture.
In December of 2020, I sold my condo (rental) in Silver Spring Maryland and my wife and I sold out home in Bowie Maryland so that we could relocate to Southern Alabama.
In January of 2021 we bought our home in Southern Alabama and DLBratton bought five more (Single Family Home) rentals in Southern Alabama. In May of 2021, I sold my longest held rental in Vermont (a duplex) and bought two more SFR rentals.
Finally, as of the writing of this update, I have 8 more doors under contract, that will close in July of 2021. This will bring DLBratton Enterprises to 21 doors. This slow growth strategy is now accelerating in 2021 and I have strong growth plans for 2022 and beyond.

In June of 2018, I started the Stage Four Reia and Colin Charles and I were the only two people at the first meeting. In January of 2019, Mink Properties LLC was born. This is a partnership with Colin, Dominca, and I. Please visit our website at www.minkproperties.com.

Let’s run the numbers
I bought my first condo for cash. I had about 80K in the stock market and sold it to pay cash for my condo. This was around 1997 and I bought the condo for somewhere around 60K. In in May of 2000, I sold it for 62K and bought a 3 bd 1ba house in Vergennes VT for 94K in June of 2000.  As mentioned, I started house hacking by finishing a basement room and renting out the three bedroom house. This covered my mortgage for the two years that I owned that house. I sold it in June of 2002 for 114.2K and bought the duplex for 129K in June or July of 2002. Again, I house hacked by living in one side and renting the other side to a retired electrician. The duplex needed a roof and full electrical rewiring among other things.
I let the renter stay for free for the first year and he and I rehabbed the duplex. I did all this while working on my associates degree and working a full time job. In 2004, I moved to Florida for work and kept the duplex in Vermont. I bought a condo in Florida that rose in price during the 1.5 years that I lived there. The market had started to decline in Florida and I barely got out of there with a 40k profit. Another job move brought me to DC. I bought a condo in Maryland just before the bubble burst in 2007-2008.  I paid 179K and it has never recovered. It is now my second rental because my wife and I bought a house.
Fast forward to late 2017 and my friend Dr. Waithe told me about Bigger Pockets. From 2002 to 2017, I took a break from investment properties to focus on college and get a Ph.D.
I was listening to Dave Ramsey podcasts and then stumbled across the Bigger Pockets podcast in early 2018. I was new to podcasts so it took me a couple months to start listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I started with show number 1 and by show 5, I was hooked. I have listened to 100 shows between early 2018 and mid 2018. I took breaks from listening to the podcasts to listen to the books that the guests mentioned.  I started looking for properties in March of 2018 and in May I bought another duplex. This time in Alabama. I will close on it in June of 2018 which brings me to five doors. In November of 2018, I went back down to Alabama and bought a 4 unit. This brings me to 9 doors.

This is my first post. I started buying real estate in about 1997. It was a condo in Middlebury VT.  I sold that for a slight profit and bought a house in Vergennes Vermont. The house had a basement room and separate entrance, so I had a bathroom installed and I lived in the basement and rented out the top of the house for 2 years. It was a 3 bedroom 1 bath house and it rented for the full mortgage. This was my first house hacking experience. I recently joined Bigger Pockets, where they discuss this strategy. 

After two years, I sold the house and bought a duplex in Vergennes Vermont. I have had that property since 2003 or 2004. I have made many landlording mistakes with that property, but I have just turned it over to a property manager. I will tell you about some of my mistakes in the next post as well as bring you up to date on my current activity.