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How a 24-year-old landlord built a 30-home portfolio
Lawrence Guerguis sold his car for $16,000 to buy his first rental in Illinois. By 24, he owns 30 homes and manages them remotely from California.
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Lawrence Guerguis, 24, owns more than 30 rental homes and manages them as his full-time job. He bought his first property in Illinois during his junior year of college, using money from selling his car.
Guerguis studied finance at the University of San Diego and originally planned to work in investment banking. A conversation with an investment banker changed his mind. The banker told Guerguis he loved money and had no time to spend it. "I don't want to live for money. I want to live for freedom and have a purpose," Guerguis said.
He sold his hand-me-down car for $16,000. A $15,000 down payment on a house in Illinois left $1,000 for two months of mortgage payments.
Because Guerguis had no W-2 income, he could not get a conventional loan. He used a DSCR loan, a debt service coverage ratio that checks whether rent covers the mortgage payment. The required ratio is 1.25. On that first house, his payment was about $400 a month, and HUD rent for the ZIP code was about $1,300.