My Accidental Beginning: From First Rental to Real Lessons

My name is Jenn. I’m a mom, a wife and someone who works full time… and somewhere along the way, I became a landlord. If you would’ve asked me 10 years ago what my life would look like today, owning rental property never would’ve made the list. But about 8 years ago, an opportunity landed in our laps that we couldn’t ignore.

It was an 8-unit apartment building in a small town. The property itself? Outdated. The tenants? Let’s just say… less than ideal. But the price and the potential made it a no-brainer.

Or so we thought.

What we didn’t realize at the time was just how much this one decision would change our lives. We jumped in with zero experience. No background in property management. No renovation skills to brag about. No savings account set aside for “just in case.” Just faith, grit and a belief that if we worked hard enough, we could turn this property into something better.

And when I say we learned on the fly,  I truly mean it.

Imagine managing 8 units when you’ve never even managed one. When one thing goes wrong, everything goes wrong. And in rentals… something is always going wrong.

Over the years we experienced things you truly can’t prepare yourself for:

• Tenant deaths

• Evictions

• People leaving in the middle of the night

• Arrests

• Units completely trashed and destroyed

There were many times we questioned everything. Moments we wondered if we had made the biggest mistake of our lives. But quitting was never really an option, because underneath all the chaos, we could see what the property could become, ultimately we kept going.

We worked nights after already long days at our 9–5 jobs. We worked weekends when everyone else was resting. We worked around our kids’ sports, school events and family obligations. We worked on very little sleep and a whole lot of determination. There were nights we’d get home, change clothes and head straight to the apartments to fix a leak, patch drywall, replace flooring or clean out a unit someone left destroyed.

Date nights turned into demo nights. Family time sometimes meant bringing the kids along while we painted or cleaned. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t passive income. It wasn’t what the real estate gurus on social media like to talk about. It was real life. It was messy, exhausting and overwhelming at times. Financially, it was just as challenging. We knew the property needed major upgrades, but the reality was we couldn’t do everything at once. So we had to prioritize. We focused on what needed immediate attention:

Safety issues

Mechanical repairs

Structural concerns

Anything that would affect habitability

The cosmetic upgrades, the nice extras, the “would be nice” ideas well those got pushed to the back burner. And they stayed there for many, many years. Because when you’re building something from the ground up without investors, without cash reserves and while raising a family… progress comes slower. But slow doesn’t mean stagnant. Little by little, unit by unit, repair by repair we kept moving forward. And now, 8 years later, we’re finally standing in a place that once felt impossible. We’re at the point where when units become vacant, we can start truly updating them not just fixing what’s broken, but improving them.

New flooring. Updated kitchens. Fresh paint. Better fixtures. Quality finishes. And the biggest difference now? We have the skills to do the work ourselves and do it well.

What once felt intimidating now feels manageable. This property that once felt like it was drowning us… is now something we’re proud of. Not because it’s perfect but because of what it represents. It represents resilience, sacrifice, late nights, early mornings and every ounce of effort in between. It’s the growth personally, the patients, problem solving we never expected to learn.

And most importantly…

We learned that you don’t have to start experienced.

You just have to be willing to start.

Because eight years ago, we didn’t know what we were doing.

We just knew we were willing to figure it out.

And we still are...