As women, we are often trapped in the societal expectation that we should be giving our time away for free – caring for children, caring for elderly parents, taking care of the household, shopping, volunteering at school and other events, and being expected to organize celebratory events at work. Speaking of work, even while being paid for our time we are also hindered by gender-based pay inequality and the glass ceiling! All of these often lead to significantly decreased wealth accumulation for women compared to men.
I want to see this social narrative change, but I also want to help women move completely outside of those social constructs to disconnect their wealth from their time.
If you are no longer trading your time for money, then society’s devaluation of your time, gender-based pay inequality, and the glass ceiling no longer impact your wealth growth.
Real Estate investing can be a path AROUND the glass ceiling and other societal hindrances. Last week Caitlin shared her story of building her real estate portfolio using the 4 Primary Wealth-Building Tools: Cash Flow, Appreciation, Leverage, and Tax Benefits. This week I thought I would give you a peek into my own story of how these same four real-estate-related tools led to my own wealth creation.
One of the common complaints we hear is, “oh, you got into the market when there were still good deals available and the interest rates were lower”. But the thing is, the places we invested in weren’t hot areas at the time, and the interest rates were actually similar to today’s rates!
When I was transferred to Austin for work in 2006, I had never heard of Austin and couldn’t even find it on the map. But I found a safe neighborhood two miles from downtown to settle in and ended up buying my first two properties there for around $300k at around a 6% rate. Now both properties are worth over $1 million. The key is identifying places that are still affordable but on an upward growth trajectory; in another article coming up soon we’ll talk about how to use data to find these hidden gems.
But for now, you can read the rest of my real estate journey over here (link).
These are a few of my investment properties!
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