INTERVIEW WITH KAREN RITTENHOUSE NOLAND ARARACAP
Hello! And thank you for the opportunity to talk
about real estate. This is such a great time to be
investing and I absolutely believe every person
needs at least 5 single family rental properties to
secure their retirement.
Right now in our business, I handle a lot of our
marketing. I blog, write articles for real estate
publications and, as you mentioned, I’ve written
three books, The Essential Handbook for Buying a
Home, The Essential Handbook for Selling a
Home, and The Essential Handbook for Landlords.
The first book, the one on buying, I wrote when our
youngest and his wife were buying their first home
out of state. He would email a question, I would
respond with a long answer. About the third email I
thought, “He’s asking the very same questions all
of our buyers ask. I need to write out the process
in an easy to follow format, so we can hand these
out to our buyers at the beginning of the process.”
As far as our companies, as you mentioned, we
started investing full time in January 2005. We still
have that company and today it focuses primarily
on renovating and selling properties with a goal to
pay off our portfolio. We also have a wholesale
division, a full service real estate brokerage, a
property
management
company,
and
a
coaching/training business.
And so I did. The last one, the one for landlords, I
wrote with our coaching students in mind. You only
need to purchase your very first investment
property to become a landlord and most investors
fall into the landlording business quite unprepared!
We did not start out with all of this in mind! Our
only original goal was to secure our retirement. As
the business progressed over time, however, all of
the other divisions/focuses grew out of what we
were doing quite naturally.
If you don’t want to be surprised
when you’re in the middle of a
deal, then expect to be surprised.
Because surprises happen - with
pretty much every single one
Now, let’s go back to before 2005, what
initially inspired you to become a real
estate investor?
My children had left home and my new focus
became retirement - how would I ever be able to
afford it and would I ever be able to quit working.