Q&A with Avery Heilbron
Avery Heilbron is a real estate broker and investor based out of Durham, NC
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Avery Heilbron is a real estate broker and investor based out of Durham, NC. He became a millionaire by the age of 27. As of today he has 344k TikTok followers, 14k YouTube subscribers, and 15k Instagram followers. We did a mini Q&A and he was able to offer up some awesome insights.
You can follow him on Instagram and TikTok @_averyheilbron. On YouTube he is @averyheilbron.
Q&A:
1. How much initial capital did you start with? How did you get this funding to invest?
- I started with my ~$18,500 down payment, $3k for closing and $7500 for renovations right away. Later renovations I saved up from because I was house hacking.
- I had no student loan debt, got a signing bonus for work, saved every penny from my job, saved from internships and always worked a job at school.
2. What's been your real estate investment strategy?
- House hacking 2x a small multi, single family live in flip, airbnb on a second home loan and most recently a 4 unit that I funded with private money.
- I have been utilizing my owner occupied loans and am now trying to do conventional investment loans or private money to buy places.
- Eventually I will have some large cash out refinances I can use.
3. What's your buying criteria and how did you decide on it?
- I'm not as worried about hitting a specific metric as getting into an ugly place with a great location that there's a lot of value add and rent growth. My duplex I forecasted $300/month in cash flow but now gets $1500/month due to rent growth and was in a major path of progress. Location is by far the most important. I personally love B class buildings in B class turning to A minus areas or B- to B plus class buildings in A class areas.
4. Was there a turning point that helped you go faster? Or what was the best decision you made?
- Increasing my income streams from my W2, social media and real estate allowed me to get money for down payments faster (especially social media). Of course using private money for the most recent investment enabled me to just find a deal and be less worried about finances.
5. What were the biggest mistakes you made? If you had to start over, what would you do differently?
- Biggest mistake: not having been a graduate from college in 2010 lol. But more realistically not figuring out how to scale faster and really take advantage of the last 3 years. I did take advantage but would've been awesome to own some more rentals and airbnbs at a 3% interest rate. Still something I am working on today too.
- Other big mistake was attempting to partner with people I knew nothing about to buy bigger stuff. Covid luckily put a halt on our partnership and I backed out after not liking them. We did have a 23 unit under contact in 2020 and probably would have worked fine but I like to build a longer relationship with people know before getting into bed financially. Overall, it was a good learning experience.
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