1. Ms. Jackson, tell us how you found so much success in real estate investing while serving in our U.S. Armed Forces?
The one thing both Real Estate Investing and serving in the U.S Armed Forces has in common is selfless service. Most people would probably think it would be discipline, right? But it’s not. Discipline is important, but it can be taught through repetition and practice. However selfless service is a state of mind. This is when you put someone else’s needs ahead of your own needs. Selfless services is counter intuitive at best because human beings are taught from an early age to look out for themselves and focus inward for individualism.
Really successful people understand that in order for them to become successful and sustain their success, they must serve others first. By serving others and helping them get what they need, you will receive all the things that you need, like higher compensation, gratitude, respect, love, honor, etc. Within both my business and leadership role as a Captain in the U.S Army Reserves, I challenge myself daily to increase the amount of people I serve each day.
When starting out in their real estate investing journey, most new investors are very anxious to close their first deal. Their motives are self serving which feds their fear of failure.
I normally have to tell them to be still, take the time to learn how to serve. You are building. Real estate is a get rich slow process. If you move without a foundation you set yourself up for future hurt and most people literally can not afford any new losses.
Study the techniques and strategies available which provide the highest valuable solutions to the people. Learn how to solve major problems in other people’s lives, and in turn you will be rewarded with high compensation. The reality is, this philosophy is the complete opposite of the thoughts in their subconscious mind.
Normally they are focused on their needs, their bills, their obligations. These thoughts will be very evident once they start to deal with the sellers and buyers. Their deals will even fall apart because their motive is directed inward. And in the real estate business the way to create opportunity is to serve others first, not ourselves first. This was a tough lesson I had to learn too, but it was well worth it.
2.Tell us your experience with your first real estate investment transaction.
What is your backstory that gives your audience a vested interest in your journey?
I was broke single mother trying to make money the best way I knew how, by working my ass off at my corporate job in banking. Through servicing customers at my branch and managing their bank accounts, I learned that people were making money buying and selling houses for huge profits. So, I created a plan to flip my first new construction house by borrowing money from a boyfriend for the down payment and financing the rest of my purchase with a traditional bank mortgage. I was on track to make about 35% appreciation once the house was finished being built and I could officially say that I was a real estate investor making extra money separate from my 9-5 paycheck.
What is it you want to accomplish?
I wanted to be able to support my son so he wouldn’t have to feel the shame and disappointment of being raised by a single mother with only one income. I didn’t want my son to suffer because of my failed relationship with his father.
a. What is the external struggle you are dealing with?
The external struggle was I only made a small salary and was living paycheck to paycheck barely paying my bills. The more I tried to figure out how to make more money, was the more I lost money. The only way I knew how to increase my income was either getting another job or working more hours at my present job.
b. What is the internal struggle you are dealing with? The internal struggle was, my son was supportive. He thought that his mom was the best mother on the planet. The truth is besides his grandmother, I was all he had and he loved me unconditionally despite the fact that I couldn’t afford to always buy him the things he wanted. But no matter how much I tried to accept my son’s love, I felt like a failure because I brought him into the world with no plan of how I was going to take care of him.
What was the wall or problem you hit within your current opportunity that started this new journey?
The problem was, I was running out of money and my debt was growing and increasing rapidly. Daycare fees, rent, utilities, credit cards, car payments, student loans, insurance payments were all eating up my paycheck. Some months, I was too afraid to look at my bank statement because I knew I had a negative balance and incurred non-sufficient funds charges and collection fees.
What was the epiphany you experienced and new opportunity discovered?
I had learned about real estate investing because I would help customers fill out mortgage applications in my branch. During the application interview, I was required to ask the customer how they intended to use the property. Most said they wanted to buy a home to live in, while a select few would say they planned to buy a house as an investment and they wanted to use the banks money to buy houses. I was intrigued by the idea of flipping houses. I often fantasize about what my dream life would be after making a lot of money flipping houses on my lunch breaks and in my spare time. I would secretly search for houses online and talk to realtors and visit new home communities. So when the first opportunity came for me to invest in a new home community that was being built not too far away from where I lived, I jumped at the chance.
What was the plan you created to achieve your desire?
Because I didn’t have any money saved up, I borrowed $10,000 from my boyfriend at the time. He really liked me a lot and unfortunately, I took advantage of his kindness. I then matched his money with my refund check from my tax return and made a 10% down payment of $14,000 for my new investment property. The rest of the money, I got from a bank loan. After all, I worked in banking and new all the minimum requirements to get approved for bank loans. This was the only strategy I aware of to buy properties because I had witnessed other investors borrowing money from banks, then getting great returns on the leveraged loan funds.
What conflict did you experience along the way? At first everything was going according to plan. The new home builder was in the process of pulling permits to build my new investment property. I even got a chance to pick out all the designs, cabinets, flooring and wall colors. I was excited. I even started prematurely counting the Benjamin’s I expected to get when I sold the house.
Then one day, I got a call from the builder’s representative saying, Ms. Jackson, we have to change the 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms model you originally selected, to a 2 bedrooms 2 bathrooms model because the specs will not fit on the lot your house is supposed to be built on. Suddenly a feeling of panic came over me. I knew 3 bedrooms were more desirable to potential buyers than 2-bedroom houses. The return on investment I expected would drastically decrease because the demand for 2 bedrooms houses was so low. Then to make matters worse, they also said their building schedule would be delayed by 6 months. Talk about awful timing.
Right around that time, my investment property was being built, the subprime mortgage market was causing the housing market to crash. Banks stopped lending and values of properties were rapidly going down all around me, especially in the neighborhood I was investing. I watched as my dream deal, slowly became my nightmare deal. Not only did I not get the model house I originally chose, but I now ran the risk of losing all the equity appreciation I expected to receive because housing values were declining.
By the time my deal closed, the appraised value was barely enough to meet the minimum requirements of my lender. But the story doesn’t end there, I was now stuck with a house that had no equity. All my built-in profit I thought I’d have disappeared. I watched the value of my investment property decrease to 51 percent of the amount of my loan. I had lost The $14,000 deposit, plus $70,000 in depreciation plus the 24 months of payments cost I had made towards my loan, which was another $27,000, as I waited for my lender to approve a short sale.
What was the end result you achieved? I ended up getting so frustrated with real estate investing because I knew that other people were making money investing and there I was in heaps of debt that made me worse off financially than I was before. So instead of having a pity parade, I cut my losses and acknowledged the facts. I obviously was missing some key pieces of information that could have saved me time and money. Why else would other investors be making money while I was losing money.
I set out on a quest to read every no money and low money down real estate strategy that could find. I became obsessed with learning techniques which did not require the use of a person’s credit to borrow money. The conclusion I came to was, the more you borrowed money for investing, the higher the risk the investor would be exposed to. The investors that were making the most money with real estate, opted to use these creative strategies to reduce their risk. They obviously knew more than I did and protected themselves as well as their investments from loss.
This was my “Aha” moment. Successful investors do not use money from banks to buy houses, they use terms or agreements instead. The second “Aha” moment I realized was, I needed someone to teach me how to structure and get these deals done. Up to this point, I only knew one strategy, borrow money, go into debt, and pray your investment increases in value so you can make a profit.
What was the transformation you experienced?
It was almost 24 months after my short sale when my credit score began to recover the loan’s damage. I was still working as a branch manager in banking while simultaneously reading books about creative real estate techniques. One day while servicing one of my high-profile customers, he asked me to notarize a document for him. Notary services were complimentary for all customers of that financial. So of course, I agreed and began reading the paperwork I was being requested to notarize for him.
After reading the first sheet of paper, my heart began to race immediately. I immediately got up from my desk and closed my office door and blocked the exit. The customer looked surprised and asked me if something was wrong. I replied yes, you do real estate! You see the reason my response was out of order was because I recognized the document he was using from one of the books I had read. I then demanded him to teach me. The customer was so surprised, not only was I holding him hostage in my office but I began an interrogation with a pressing demand for answers.
As we awkwardly stared at each other for a few minutes, he finally said, I’m not the teaching type but I know someone I can introduce you to. He then asked if I had any plans for Wednesday night? My reply, obviously I’m going to be with you. He then laughed and said you know this is not a date, right? And I replied yes, I understand. You want to introduce me to someone who could teach me about real estate. I was excited.
From that day forward, I became a sponge soaking up every teaching possible and I hung onto my new mentor’s words. All this came with a price though, but I’m so happy it did. If it wasn’t for the new investor family that adopted me, I would not have been able to create the Wholesale Rockstar Secrets. A real estate strategy that I use in my business to protect not only myself and the house, but everyone within the transaction. I vowed to never lose at investing ever again. Every deal I did from that point needed to have a minimum of 5 wins. This technique has been the secret sauce to my success and now you can implement it too. Use all the lessons learned from my deals, systems and tools to your advantage to not only make money as a real estate investor by also avoid the pitfalls of building your business without a roadmap and directions.
3. Ms. Jackson, tell us your daily routine and how you enjoy having a full balance lifestyle.
Yes, my daily routine begins very early in the morning. Around 4 a.m to be exact. it is extremely early for me but I know that it’s a short-term sacrifice in order for me to accomplish my long-term goals. Plus at this time of the day, my house is quiet with no distractions, not even my dog is awake yet. My morning begins with meditation. And during my meditation, I envision and plan all my successful expectations for the day. I visualize myself winning. The reason I do this is so I can be intentional about my day.
Most people live their days without having a flow or any real purpose. They just let the day happen to them instead of them controlling their day. I then listen for answers from God to see where He wants to direct my life. It’s a faint small voice that most people miss and even if they hear it, they dismiss it as imaginary. But don’t dismiss what you hear. Your intuition or inner voice is trying to connect to you, to download a supernatural revelation for processing to support your area of gifting.
After my meditation, I say my affirmations. I have specific affirmations that I say out loud as I look myself in the mirror. It’s important to see your true self and speak encouraging words to yourself. Your subconscious mind feeds of the positive words coming out of your mouth while you look yourself in the eyes and hear your own voice. After my affirmations, I write the message I received during my meditation. Sometimes there’s nothing to write, which is okay, but even if its only one word, I write. I always write my thoughts and desires in the present tense as if it is real and already happening.
For instance, for my real estate investor business, I will write something on the lines like, “Today I met a client. Her name is Jane. Jane asked me to help her move closer to her grandchildren by buying her house. Of course I will help you Jane, I am here for you and I will help you create a winning solution so you can be reunite with your family. Helping you Jane, brings me joy and happiness. I’m blessed to be a blessing to you”. Then I speak my writing out loud multiple times as I get dressed for my day.
Now, I know this may sound a little unusual to most people. It is definitely not the norm for the masses, however when you study the most successful people in the world, they all have similar morning routines to include, meditation, affirmations and journalizing. If you are feeling stuck in your life, I highly recommend incorporating a morning routine to include meditation, affirmations and journalizing. It will surely increase your productivity, as well as the abundance in your life.
My daily routine includes speaking affirmations throughout the day and using faith props to stimulate gratitude. Gratitude is the precursor to abundance and increase. So if you want to attract good things, people and new resources into your life, practice being thankful. You’ll be surprised how quickly you become attractive to everything you want.
Bio:
Jacqueline Jackson aka The Jackie Jackson, is CEO and founder of www.TheJackieJackson.com Cash Flow Your Life Academy. Jackie is a Real Estate Expert, Coach & Mentor to women, as well as an International Television talk show personality with a flair for all things fashion and beauty.
Jackie empowers her clients with the tools necessary to design their dream life by teaching creative cash flow real estate strategies, how to trade and build wealth through sales. Jackie’s Personalized Coaching Plans include Online Courses so you can learn at your own pace, Workshops & Seminars, and sharing lessons learned from interviews with successful entrepreneurs. The Jackie Jackson Show airs weekly on TATV Tele Anacaona, DTV Channel 38.2 Orlando, FL and DTV Channel 11.2 Miami, FL broadcasted in over 1.5Million households.
After working almost two decades in corporate America, climbing the success ladder to vice president, Jackie decided to walk away from it all, to pursue her calling as a mentor, influencer and coach to new entrepreneurs looking to concur and crush their financial goals.
Jackie also serves her country as an Officer in the U.S Army Reserves and is a two-time recipient of the prestigious Army Commendation Medal (ARCOM). The Commendation Medal is a United States military decoration which is presented for sustained acts of heroism or meritorious service.
Jackie is proud mother of two amazing children, Jayden and Jasmine and resides in Orlando, FL. She is also an alumnus of York College C.U.N.Y with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Psychology as well as earned her Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix.
Jackie has a track record of taking massive action, while getting profitable results for her clients. Jackie has been featured on multiple media platforms to include Icon Advisor Magazine with David T. Fagan, President of Icon Builder Media and Host of the Cable TV Show, The Hollywood Entrepreneur.