I turned £760 into £78k by the time I was 21 – I was living in a storage unit but cashing in thousands
TWO years after leaving high school, Douglas Aguilar didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life.
At the time, he had a passion for making furniture and construction so he began selling custom made furniture to friends and family.
Soon after that, he found work in construction and his boss introduced him to real estate investing – which Douglas found a deep passion for.
He attempted to have a go at it himself by cold calling, and door knocking but wasn’t successful having been so fresh in the industry and “not knowing” what he was really doing.
After hand-dialling random numbers, in October 2019, he got his first deal.
Now at the age of 21, Douglas has managed to turn £760 into £78,000 – and plans to continue his road to success.
Talking on the podcast Wholesaling Inc with Brent Daniels, Douglas explained how his first deal was done by calling numbers people and trying to convince them to invest their money into real estate.
He says he managed to make £$1,000 (£760) of” the first deal.
He continues: “I was still working in construction, but I was basically working for rent.
“I probably earned around $6,000 (£4,570) a year with that job. But I was living for free.
“I was working for free. I was doing nothing but construction work.”
Because he didn’t have the time to make these phone calls to random numbers, he said he told his “girlfriend to make a few calls and it worked out.”
After closing the £760 deal for real estate investing, Douglas was able to buy a car with that deal.
But after getting a buzz from his first client, Douglas realised that if he focussed more on real estate investing, he could create a career out of it and so he left his construction job.
Douglas was then living out of his car and a storage unit as he didn’t want to move back home and get “comfortable” with his parents.
He says: “I wanted to get a deal.”
‘No comfortability’
Douglas, who is from Houston, Texas, says that heading back home could’ve made him lazy in getting back into real estate investing.
He continues: “It was winter at the time so it was pretty cool. That’s how I was able to survive, because I didn’t want to be comfortable.
“I was making calls and I would say I got pretty lucky on it too.”
After randomly dialling different numbers, Douglas came across another person who seemed “really motivated” in making a deal in real estate and managed to earn $16,000 (£12,113).
There was a family member who was paying the taxes on the property. So they were all paid up
Douglas Aguilar
By “picking up the phone and being proactive,” Douglas was able to keep work afloat and soon discovered that he could find a home for free.
Talking to Brent Daniels, he says: “I got a piece of land for free and it had working utilities.”
He did this by using the driving for dollars technique on the Deal Machine app.
According to the Deal Machine website, driving for dollars is a real estate investment technique where investors drive through neighbourhoods, looking for properties that appear to be vacant, distressed, or in need of repair.
‘Ringing random numbers’
By focusing on these types of properties, investors can potentially find good deals and maximise their investment returns.
Douglas continues: “And that started exploding. That was one of the deals I was able to get.
“It was just a vacant property. It was so vacant because he just forgot about it.”
Douglas managed to get through to the owner of the property through a skip tracing them.
Skip tracing is the process of finding and tracking people who are difficult to locate, such as those who are missing, unresponsive, or avoiding conventional outreach.
This can be done through social media, online directories, credit reports, online searches and phone and email databases.
They were super happy and then they both agreed that they would give me the property
Douglas Aguilar
Talking about managing to find the owner of the abandoned property, he says: “I called [him up] and he said he doesn’t own the property anymore, and I said yeah you do, you are still on the county records.
“He was 80-years-old, he was getting condemnation letters that they were going to condemn the house [and asked me] ‘is that why I am still getting these letters?’
“He thought he sold it to a friend a decade ago.
“He got the money from his friend, but his friend never signed the deed.
“So he kept telling me he wasn’t going to give it to me unless he spoke to the friend.
“So I had to ‘skip trace’ the friend, [and] got them in touch. They were super happy and then they both agreed that they would give me the property.
“There was a family member who was paying the taxes on the property. So they were all paid up.
“I only had to pay $600 (£457) to bring the taxes up.”
Now, Douglas owns the land and is getting offers for around £46,000.
His plan is to demolish it, and put two or three mobile homes there.
Douglas now has a whole portfolio of properties that he has found through the same technique, and has closed $102,000 (£78,000) in real estate investing fees.
Head to Wholesaling Inc with Brent Daniels podcast on YouTube or Spotify to listen Douglas entire story.