Stay-at-home Mom To Entrepreneur

2 Comments
Topics: Investor Success

Here’s something you may not know about me, Jackie Lange.  After my son and daughter were born in 1980 and 1982, I made the decision to be a stay-at-home Mom for a year.  A year turned into 12 years.  Twelve years of Sesame Street, Cub Scott Leader, Girl Scout Leader, homeroom Mom, and grinding organic wheat to make fresh bread every day.

Prior to being a Mom, I worked as a cashier at a grocery store, a cashier at a bank, and as a long-distance telephone operator.

As kids get older they get more expensive and I needed to go back to work to add additional income to our family.

With no college degree and no work experience for 12 years (they don’t count being a Mom as work you know), my prospects were bleak.  I could be a Walmart greeter or maybe flip hamburgers at McDonald’s.  Neither paid as much money as I needed to make.

Luckily, the builder who was building a new house for me offered me a job as his part-time assistant.  I created a marketing campaign to accept a mobile home as the down payment for a new house and we sold many hundreds of new homes doing this. Surprisingly, many mobile homeowners were cash house buyers.

The part-time job turned into a full-time job when they asked me to find land where they could build a 120,000 SF warehouse and later I sold advertising for their television show Your New House.  I was darn good at it.  Besides selling all 13 advertising spots for $25,000 for Dallas Texas in the early 90s, I syndicated the show to 80% of the USA during a 4-day trade show in Las Vegas.  Within a few months, I sold the television show to the rest of the US and to HGTV.

I was making the builder millions but I was only making $24,000 a year.  

I really enjoyed finding the land for the warehouse.  A bank had foreclosed on an industrial park.  I negotiated a discount directly with the bank President.  Then I made a presentation to Economic Development for them to buy the land and pay for the building in exchange for the guarantee of 10 jobs in the community. So, the home builder got an 11-acre industrial park (sales price $69,000 thanks to me) and a 120,000 SF warehouse for free.

I got a $2,000 bonus at Christmas for doing such a great job.  It was insulting!

After that, I started looking for a better way to make money than working for someone else.  Since finding and negotiating real estate was fun I pursued that.

I checked out every book about real estate at the library.  This was pre-internet.  That’s when I discovered wholesaling.  I did not need to buy houses, get a loan, or fix up anything.  I just needed to find old houses, track down the owner, get a contract, and then sell my contract to a rehabber.

This sounded like fun and it was risk-free because I did not have to buy the house or put up much money. 

I told everyone I knew that I was looking for old run-down houses and I’d pay a referral fee if they helped me find one. I also drove around looking for vacant looking houses then talked to the neighbors to find the owner.

My son’s best friend’s Mom knew a guy at work who had inherited 13 rental properties.  I contacted him and got one under contract for $25,000.  A few days later I sold it to a rehabber and made an $8,000 profit.

I went in to work the next day to quit my job.  I never looked back.

That first year, 1994-1995, I wholesaled 40 houses making $3,000 to $5,000 per house.

The second year, in addition to wholesaling, I decided to do some rehabbing too.  For my first rehab, I negotiated to buy an old run-down house for $35,000 paid in one payment when the house was all fixed up and sold.  No down payment, no interest.  Just a single payment note.  It was worth $89,000 fixed up.

A big turning point was when I recruited the Moms from the Mother’s Day Out program at a church to go out looking for houses for me.  I knew these Moms had nothing to do on Tuesday when they took their kids to the church and they would love the opportunity to make some extra money for their family.  They started looking for vacant looking houses for me.  My sales volume doubled overnight.

About the same time, the internet was just taking off so I built some simple little websites to attract motivated sellers.  I taught myself how to build websites.  They were terrible looking but it started attracting motivated sellers from all over the world.  So, I licensed the use of my lead generation websites to investors – so they get an exclusive on all leads for their county.

Later I started buying nice houses subject to the mortgage or with seller financing.  Some I’d keep as a rental property.  Some I’d sell with a Contract for Deed or a Lease Option until that got outlawed in Texas then I switched to selling with Seller Financing if I did not keep it as a rental.

Then I started buying older mobile homes for $1500 then selling them with seller financing for $11,900 and a low down payment.  The cash flow is great!

I ran across 64 park-owned mobile homes for sale for $2500 each.  They all had to be moved out of the park. I negotiated to buy them all for $400 each BUT instead of paying cash, I paid only $2400 for an option to buy them for $400 each with the agreement that I’d pay the $400 when the mobile home was moved out of the park. In the option agreement, I included that I could hold an auction at the park to sell some of the homes.  I actually sold ALL the homes during a 2-day Highest Bidder Sale.  With cash in hand, I went back to the park and negotiated a 10% discount if I paid for them all in advance.

With every deal I did, I gained more confidence and more knowledge about how to put together creative real estate transactions.

I started getting options on nice houses at 20-30% below market then doing a Highest Bidder Sale to get the house sold in less than 7 days.  The price of the house did not matter because I knew I could sell anything with my Highest Bidder Sale method.

In addition to deals in Texas, I even flew out to Maui to get an option on a $15,000,000 house and $4 million to $5 million houses in Florida or Colorado.   I even got an option on an 18,000-acre ranch one time.

I’ve done a lot of crazy deals and they were all fun!  How many people get to say their job is fun?

After the 64 mobile home deal, I started looking for other package deal opportunities because I could do the work one time but make 10 times more money.

When I got a contract on 10 -20 wholesale properties I’d sell them with a Magic Bus!  I’d rent a large greyhound style bus then advertise the properties which were all well below 50% of retail prices.  Investors paid $500 to be on the bus for the opportunity to bid on the properties. We’d drive around to each house; I’d hand out a bid sheet to the 30-40 investors on the bus.  I’d sell each house to the highest bidder. At the end of the day, I’d sell 10-20 houses with a $3,000 or more profit each. One time I sold 42 houses doing a two day Magic Bus.

When I met Jack Miller I realized that his information really needed to get out to the masses.  He was the most creative and brilliant real estate investor I had ever met. After several years of begging, in 2007, Jack finally allowed me to record his seminars and we started doing weekly coaching calls too.  These recordings were how CashFlowDepot.com was born.

My training is at CashFlowDepot.com too and I add new content every month.

CashFlowDepot.com has thousands of members and is growing strong. Many have told me it is the best real estate investing training they have ever experienced.  The lessons are available 24/7 so you can learn at your own pace.

In our Community Forum, I enjoy answering questions about how to put deals together.  It is rewarding to help others make the transition to being a full time real estate entrepreneur. It makes my day to get an email from someone who made money with real estate because of some advice I shared or the training at CashFlowDepot.com

Now, I live in the tropical mountains of Panama.  Totally by accident, I started PanamaRelocationTours.com to help others move to Panama.

I’m not actively buying and selling very much real estate these days.  I’m doing some master leasing in Panama and will soon start building some rental houses.  I do enjoy helping others acquire real estate in creative ways.

Why me I’ve wondered?   Why did I achieve success from such humble beginnings?  I never gave up!  Persistence and tenacity played a big role in my success.  As a parent, we need to set examples for our children.  I wanted my children to know that they can do anything and everything they want to do.. just like Mom.  There ARE alternatives to working at a job or making less money than you deserve for your efforts.

So… morale of the story… no matter where you come from…..no matter what kind of education you have.. no matter what kind of life experiences you have…even if you are a stay-at-home Mom like I was… YOU CAN DO REAL ESTATE INVESTING TOO!

You can make as much money as you want to!

I’d love to help you learn how you can control your own destiny and your financial future.  Real estate investing can do that for you.

A one-year PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP at CashFlowDepot.com will give you Instant Access to the training you need to be successful too.

IT’S TIME TO MAKE A DECISION FOR YOUR FINANCIAL FUTURE

If you aren’t 100% certain of your future financial security, it’s time for you to make the decision to become financially independent. This will be an easy decision! Either you’re happy with your lot in life or you’re not! Either you’ve already provided for your family’s financial security or you’re willing to bet their lifestyle on your employer or the government. It’s up to you to take action now before time passes you by.

Wouldn’t you really rather control your financial future yourself? You can, as a real estate entrepreneur. Thousands have done it before you starting with little cash or know-how. They didn’t have the advantage of being coached by someone who’s been where you are now, and gone where you want to go; someone who can make it happen a lot faster than you think possible if you take his/her advice. It’s your choice…

Make that first move and join our family of Real Estate Entrepreneurs at CashFlowDepot.com.  See you in the winner’s circle!

CLICK HERE TO JOIN CASHFLOWDEPOT

Best of Success… and Freedom,
Jackie Lange (Stay-at-home Mom turned Entrepreneur)

 

Tags Jackie Lange

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

*

2 Comments on “Stay-at-home Mom To Entrepreneur”

  1. I love your story ! So amazing Jackie! Im forwarding this to my relatives and friends.

    1. Glad you enjoyed my back story!

You Don't Have to Spend a Fortune to Learn How to Make One!

Join the CashFlowDepot Community today and learn how to make cash and cash flow with real estate.