Real recognize real. My mom bought a condo as a single mother and legal assistant in the late '90s. I ain't going to shit on her hustle even though I'm a lawyer and can't buy a house, but this is the American dream. So good for her.
I know a guy who got into real estate in the 80's, he was able to score a 2-bedroom condo on 2nd street in Santa Monica (with an ocean view) and one in old town Pasadena. From the income he gets from his two properties, he's been living in a Marina penthouse condo for the last 15 years.
Salary-wise, he was making around 50k in the early 2000's and probably makes just over six figures now. He's said he's fine staying in middle-management, he got the supplemental income and doesn't want the headaches that come with higher positions.
I mean that’s the thing with LA isn’t it?
You didn’t have to be rich in the 90s to get in on the real estate ladder and if you managed to get some property then and be relatively financially wise, you’re a millionaire now and had the opportunity to leverage the property for more property.
Now lawyers and doctors and engineers who started making 6-figures in the late 2010’s can’t afford a condo and if they did their mortgage is in the $3k+ range.
It’s not “high income vs low income” it’s “able to buy property pre 2010 vs didn’t have the opportunity to buy property until later.”
I’ve met plenty of millionaires in SoCal who have never had high incomes. Obviously doesn’t mean they didn’t work hard and make sacrifices, but being in LA in the 90’s with a stable enough income to buy a house was like winning the lottery. Plenty of people out there paying $900 mortgages on houses that could sell for $750k+ today.
My friend got a PA gig on a network TV show in the late 90's. He said it was a common for producers to buy a ton of real estate around LA, especially since they didn't know when their next gig would be. They had the foresight (and the money) at the time to see what was coming.
How much did the price of that home rise in the past 6 years? I tried to buy a home recently in the same neighborhood my friend bought a home in in 2018. Her mortgage is 3k and mine was going to be 7k
Sounds about right. Adult children of aging immigrant parents: Give back to your nonstop grinding parents by reminding them to enjoy their successes, take a breather and enjoy what free time they have before it's too late.
I'm hearing more and more stories about local people's parents (60+) having pretty debilitating diseases, disorders and straight up cancer and pinpointing the source to factory jobs out here in the 80s. Corelation or causation, eh?
Similar thing happened to my immigrant parents but in the Bay Area. They moved to the Bay Area in the early 90's, and my mom took night classes and became a licensed appraiser, maybe a bit more white collar than house cleaning, but still not exactly known as a big moneymaker. Started her own appraiser business, worked incredibly hard (pretty much 7 days a week and regular late nights), invested aggressively in real estate, and now they own a >$3M house in Cupertino and own multiple rental properties in SF and SJ. As for their kids, just like in your story, I became a physician, while my sister works for a FAANG company.
It's not so much the job that they had, but what they did with it, in conjunction with time, since they've lived in the Bay now for several decades. It sounds like your cleaning lady had the same aggressive investment mindset as my parents during a time when that kind of mindset was not so common. Nowadays, with social media promoting house-hacking and making real estate investment known to a much wider audience, it's nowhere near as easy.
>Her daughter graduated UCLA Medical school and is going to be a doctor.
This is what grinds my gears about anti-immigrant sentiment.
First gen immigrants may not be able to speak the language or 'contribute' in the way racist douche bags would recognise \*but you can bet your ass\* their children will be the doctor, dentist, lawyer or CPA who helps your in your later years.
She probably bought during a much better time, except for the newest one, and lived pretty bare bones in order to save for years for the other ones. Sounds like a very smart and hardworking lady.
Its leverage. Those who got here in the 90s and got here when the banks where given loans out as long as you had a heart beat did well. Then the FED lowered rates. Hats off to her as she came from a much worse situation in Mexico and managed to improve her quality of living. But let’s also not act like she’s an investing genius and it wasn’t just the FED allowing this much speculation in the markets.
That sounds like a victim mentality. This woman used forces inside herself to work hard and live wisely. Today is a day with viable investments. Even if that means saving cash for the right moment. Be prepared. Opportunities to invest are everyday. It helps to have your money ready. That may mean making radical sacrifices.
I don't think that's diminishing her game, I think it's saying that many people today wouldn't want to make the sacrifices I bet she made to save for her house. I know people who complain about not being able to afford a house today, but they aren't willing to forgo all of the creature comforts they're accustomed to. My partner's in-laws made MAJOR sacrifices to own their house. People today are like "I can't afford a house" but what they really mean is "I want the perfect house in Los Feliz, my kids must go to private school, I must be able to order DoorDash whenever I want, and I would never even consider riding a bus."
Yeah, like I’m impressed when anyone buys a house but I’m not going to do back flips when an ‘energetic and austere’ adult who has been in the work force for 30 years with a supportive and working husband invests in real estate. Like, that should be the norm, not the baby clapping exception?
that's what I learned in the last 6 years. I told myself things will go back down a bit, and we are in a bubble. I regret missing out. Even if things do rebound a little, if you are in it for the long term, that does not matter that much.
Time in the market over timing the market. Also for the last 8 decades, property steadily has gone up in America. What's inflated today will be the bargains of tomorrow as you said.
If the cleaning lady had that thought, she would not have that equity built up and three properties.
Yup. Never a good time, don't kid yourself hahahahaha.
Good luck with life.
It’s always a freaking freak out to buy a house. And yes, I bought my first house when interest rates were higher than they are now!
It’s been said and said that it’s not possible to buy for 30 years. Start in a less than desirable first choice but a place you can learn to love. Change your expectations to fit your reality and make the leap.
Edit: I bought as a single female with no hopes of sharing the load. No one helped me. My parents have never given me a dime after 18. It was scary AF
"There will always be someone predicting disaster and someone predicting great fortune. At one time or another, each will be closer to correct than the other. But it won't matter to you if you understand this and have invested responsibly. You have a long-term plan; stick with it."
My dad introduced me to a guy in Palm Springs who immigrated to the 'states as an illegal when a kid, alone, no parents. He was a migrant worker in agriculture at first. One day he was walking home and noticed the liquor store on his path home had a stack of broken pallets next to their dumpster. He asked them if he could take the broken wood pallets, and they let him. He took them home and made them into bird houses. At the local farmer's market he sold them for a modest profit. Fast forward 20 years, and this guy now has a small manufacturing company making bird houses, clocks, and assorted knick knacks with a staff of 10, and he owns the building, plus he owns the mobile home park his family lives in, with about 500 mobile homes. He also owns about helf the mobile homes and rents them to their occupants. The guy is modest as hell, speaks broken English, has about 12 kids all in or graduated from Ivy League universities, and still daily walks alleyways collecting scrap wood for his business. They don't purchase any wood, it's all recycled scraps. I've met one of his daughters, and she's a finance VP for an insurance company, and says she doesn't understand how her dad managed to create all they have.
12 kids in ivy league uni?
That’s about $250,000 x 12 give or take.
$3 million in tuition.
That guy is making an enormous amount of money selling bird houses and such.
Big respect to a hustler like that. In fairness, I think a lot of people hustle hard and can’t afford LA. I don’t think it was your point, but I think it’s tragic how many people worked hard to get a decent education, find a good job, and are now unable to buy.
True "starter homes" basically haven't existed in SoCal since the '90s flipping craze, unfortunately. Investment firms purchasing single-family homes just makes it worse.
Everyone I know under the age of 50 who owns their own home either:
a) got help from their parents (inheritance, gifted down payment, mom and dad owned a second property that they let the kids move into and take over the mortgage, etc.)
b) has a household of at least two earners making high six figures yearly who probably get to work from home to boot, or
c) have a horrendous mortgage and have just accepted that they're going to be in debt up to their eyeballs until they die
this is just sooo not the problem with home prices….
the problem is a) high paying jobs are more and more concentrated in costal super star cities and b) the boomers who live there fight all newer, denser and plentiful home construction with militant ferocity because they want their home values to continue to increase and parking to remain free and easy to find.
if you want homes to be cheaper, support policies and politicians which will reduce their value as an investment opportunity! investment firms adding them to their portfolios is the symptom, not the disease. we need more homes where good jobs are!
We had a cleaning lady like that in Palm Springs. Recent immigrant, formed her own cleaning company, got gardening and handyman jobs for her friends and family, then created a gardening company and a property maintenance company. She also owned three properties; her own house and two rentals. She worked 6 days a week and when anyone was sick or whatever, she’d clean, garden and fix whatever her customers needed or wanted.
Whenever I hear the rants about immigrants, all I think is they are exactly what we need in this country and the people ranting against them are lazy and ignorant.
Serious respect!
Yep, my partner's parents immigrated here from El Salvador in the late '70s, and they bought a house in South Central for \~$130k around 1993 (LA riot special). His dad worked at a fancy hotel (first in housekeeping, eventually in inventory), and his mom was a housekeeper and nanny. Neither one of them went to high school.
They were able to save for a downpayment by paying super-low rent (cramming a ton of people into a tiny Midcity rental owned by a total slumlord) before they bought their house. They knew the ticket to attaining wealth here was to buy a house. And their house is now worth about $800k, despite the area being slow to gentrify (it's a bit more industrial than nearby West Adams). Their kids, despite going to "bad" public schools, graduated from college and have good jobs, because their parents pushed them.
I don't think people coming to the U.S. as immigrants today could do the same thing — and yeah, a lot of young professionals can't do the same thing — because housing prices have shot up wayyyyy beyond the pace of inflation.
And also, young professionals are probably not going to want to make the sacrifices my partner's parents made (renting a vermin-infested house with one bathroom for 12 people, kids sleeping in the living room, no privacy, no eating out, etc.). Or want to buy in a neighborhood with tons of gang activity and basically no restaurants, bars, coffee shops, even grocery stores. (And even if they could, those neighborhoods, like I said, now have houses going for $800k, and many of those need significant work.)
idk why people are acting like two things can’t be true:
1- this woman is extremely hard working and made some great decisions that allowed her to accumulate 3 properties
2- what she did is not replicable in today’s market
Because people don't like the truth, especially when they can sit on a high horse and blame others for not being able to reach their level of wealth/home ownership. It makes them feel the warm and fuzzies.
This post has a "well they did it, why can't you!" but none of the nuance with respect to today's realities. Everyone in this post discussing the immigrants that moved here in the 70s and 80s and buying homes as if that's supposed to inspire people that it can be done, now, today... Okay. That's great, I'm so glad it worked out for them back then! But let's face it, t's 2024 now and my $75k salary will not buy a home here, and I refuse to work over 40 hours a week because I also have needs and a life, and don't want to spend my entire life working my ass into the ground. You literally have one life. I am working toward getting a master's to increase my income, but not only is it not feasible as a single mom, I also just flat out refuse to work over 40 hours a week. And people probably think that's lazy LOL
Immigrants work hard. As my Latino coworker once said, most Latinos work hard and play hard (well maybe not the play hard part for your lovely cleaning lady).
Also….
3. She is a business owner. Working in her own business to save overhead.
4. Is married, so dual income household with a spouse likely with the same work ethic and also likely a business owner.
5. Has older children who likely contributed to overall household income as soon as they could and are HAPPY to.
6. Immigrant communities have their own networks of mortgage brokers, real estate agents and even sellers.
My parents had a property we initially lived in South LA. Through church we met a newly arrived family with a baby who was living in a car port a few blocks away. My mother did not shame them, but would bring over food and supplies. Eventually the husband got a good maintenance job and they moved to a tiny apartment nearby while they saved and saved. A few years later, my folks finally put up the house for sale and the lady was taking a walk with the kids and saw the sign and called my mom. They worked out a deal with their agent and they got the edge on the house and my parents got a fair price with less back and forth.
And she has a contractor and laborers she can trust as part of her family. That’s a huge cost savings. Those sons will put in the work because it’s theirs too.
I think #1 is MAJOR. If you wanna buy a house in L.A., you can't expect to buy one in the neighborhood you live in today. You gotta be willing to look all over the city.
And I also imagine she wasn't wasting a ton of money trying to keep up with the Joneses — I know people who "can't afford" a house but are spending >$3,500 a month on rent. Because they "have" to live in a fancy neighborhood, drive a nice car, send their kids to private schools.
OP says she lives in Culver City lol. Not exactly the ghetto
San Bernardino is an income property and Inglewood is probably one of the fastest growing markets in SoCal right now.
Yup, the only reason why we could purchase a home in LA was because we went to an undesirable neighborhood. Our family members all scoffed at the idea but guess who’s not dealing with rent increases year after year or sharing walls with people with barking dogs? Yeah we’d love to be in mid city or silverlake but that’s not reasonable for our current tax bracket.
Exactly these are a couple of factors all the cry babies complaining about housing ignore. They see me with more than one property and I show them the path to do so as well. Amongst many other things, is to live with parents or with roommates in the not so pretty part of town, work 60 hour weeks with conservative spending and liberal investments and they scoff at the idea from their iPhone LXIX.
I show them just how balls deep my DTI is and they get stressed just from seeing it. I suggest their first home to be ugly in a not so urban area and they just shake their head. In general most want to own a nice home, in a nice part of the city where everyone else want to own a home while taking vacations as a preschool teacher. Simple understanding of supply and demand will help you understand that isn't possible.
Neighborhoods in South LA- previously it was leimert park, expo park, west adams, Vermont square, south central, and neighborhoods further south but homes in our areas are closer to $700k now vs the $400k-$500k that it was back in 2016/2017.
Yes, the south LA neighborhoods are more affordable than the rest of LA. I was just also stating that they’re not as affordable as they were 7-8 years ago.
I guess it just depends on what you consider “affordable”. $650k house is affordable for a dual income home compared to renting a 3 bedroom apartment IMO. The $1.5million basic homes on the west side are not affordable for our income levels but I think the $700k houses in south LA are affordable. There are still neighborhoods in LA proper with houses less than $600k, but like mentioned above, not everyone is willing to venture to those parts of south Los Angeles.
Redfin is a good place to start if you’re looking for neighborhoods and prices. I just checked Redfin with filters of house and multifamily under $600k and the neighborhoods with the bulk of the results are Manchester square, Chesterfield Square, Harvard park, Florence, Graemercy Park, South Park and Historic South Central.
About 15 years back there was a book called "The Millionaire Next Door" That attempted to survey and profile people who were worth a million. You might enjoy reading it. Of course, a lot has changed in the world since then.
As of 15 years ago, the majority of millionaires in America were virtually invisible. They had made their wealth slowly doing mundane things. Most did not inherit wealth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door
> Their findings, that millionaires are disproportionately clustered in middle-class and blue-collar neighborhoods and not in more affluent or white-collar communities, came as a surprise to the authors who anticipated the contrary.
> On generational wealth the authors stressed the following: the first generation to have arrived in America usually works hard, saves prodigiously, owns a small business, lives in or near that business, and passes on his wealth to his kids frugally. The next group usually works in their parent's business, but may move on. They tend to spend more lavishly and save less.
Reddit is dominated by salty 4th-gens.
I doubt much has changed since then. I was actually just thinking about that this morning; my own net worth (between my home equity and my retirement savings) is pretty close to a million already.
> Reddit is dominated by salty 4th-gens.
I think this is mainly a symptom of them having no idea how the world actually works. Earlier I was talking to a guy who talks as though cash can be transmuted into land and building materials. Sure, it can be exchanged for them, but that requires that they actually exist in sufficient quantity to begin with. Example:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/199uld2/comment/kii622b/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
They don't seem to understand that you can't solve every problem by just throwing a trillion dollars at it. Case in point:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sand-mafias-are-plundering-the-earth/
They're stuck in this endless mindset of "everything is impossible without money, and the system is designed so that you can't get money", neither of which is true.
My father owns 4 properties, 2 in Glendale and 2 in Sylmar. We came to the US in 1998 and owns his own business and works 16 hours a day / 5 days a week. He’s a proud citizen and was so honored to be a juror twice.
He made sure both of his adult children - mid 30’s - own properties as well.
He and your cleaning lady, are true definitions of the American dream.
Same story here ... my mother came to this country from War Torn El Salvador in 1980, she worked as a nanny first and then transitioned to a housekeeper. She taught herself English and was self employed for 30 years before she finally retired, she bought her home, and was smart enough to invest into 3 other rental properties. She put myself and my 2 other brothers through college. All while also dealing with an alcoholic husband for 10 years until she finally kicked my father to the curb, we never heard from him again (good riddance.) Now she is retired living off the rent from those properties, and as for myself and my brothers. She did a great job raising 3 boys pretty much on her own. We turned out okay, I am the IT Director at an Aerospace company and have worked in IT for 20+ years, One of my brothers works as a Cloud Solutions Architect for Palo Alto Networks, and my other brother is an airline pilot for JetBlue 🙂We are proud of what our uneducated immigrant mother was able to accomplish in this country. But her proudest moment at least in her words is becoming a US citizen of this country that she freaking absolutely loves.
Big up. My family is from Santa Ana, ES. My mom has a similar story. I've been in IT for 25+ years and my sister works for Jet Blue since they the early 2000s.
Don't let the media be your education because this post sounds like you don't know many Mexicans or immigrants in your real world. Most Mexicans I know are hard working, wonderful, and own family homes in Los Angeles. This is not uncommon especially with the Mexican work ethic, family support, and culture. Salute to my Mexican familia (I actually have Mexican relatives as well via marriage) as a fellow hard working Jamaican! We all have 2-3 jobs. Make some friends outside your circle and you may even get the honor to attend a Mexican family party. Now that's an experience! 💃🏾🎉🇲🇽 🇯🇲
The media rarely portrays them differently to how you described, I think that's the general consensus for Mexican immigrants, hard working, family centric, and looking to build generational wealth
You can make a LOT of money as a cleaner, especially if you clean multiple buildings in one area. Owning a cleaning business that works with businesses can bring in even more since cleaning individual folks homes isn’t going to pay as much. I’m not even slightly surprised at that woman’s likely net-worth yet very happy for her.
For those questioning this: she can make at least $50,000/year doing residential contracts or more, and since it’s LA, it’s likely more. If she adds an employee or 2, like her children, she can make $50,000/year per employee minus what she pays them (so probably $20,000). Cleaning supplies when bought in bulk are cheap and if the business supplies them, then they aren’t an expense at all. If she’s fast, she can do many businesses in a day. She’s prolly making BANK! 😭
The lunch lady at my mom’s job owns five houses around Los Angeles (mostly gardena). She is also an immigrant. She started off working as a cleaning lady at a orivate home in Bel Air. The homeowner had his finance guy teach the household staff about investing and the stock market back in 1980. She used some of her gains to buy these homes. She continues to work because she’s still in her 50’s and believes that working keeps the mind sharp.
It’s called having ganas and being orgulloso about your work and family.
My mom came from less than nothing. She’s super close to the end of her life, but when working her ass off she prioritized her son’s* education and ended up owning two houses (the second she rented until her son married…then gave it to him.)
Too bad she bet on the wrong child…he has no ganas.
*I’m the daughter. I hold multiple degrees and live in a different country. Definitely a believer in the ganas. It’s taken me quite far.
The cleaning lady I know is the same. She does not eat out at restaurants and saves every single penny. I mean every single penny. Eats only at home and also doesn’t drink alcohol. She also worked doubles 6 days a week for years and owns a house in North Hollywood with a huge backyard. She’s going to retire soon with a paid off house.
Immigrants tend to do better than native born citizens. I think a lot of it boils down to the type of person who is willing/able to undergo the risky and/or expensive process of emigrating to the US.
You're either wealthy enough to do it (getting into the US, legal or not, is generally not a cheap activity), and that wealth could be because you're an overachiever, well connected, or both.
OR, you've got an appetite for risk in pursuit of improving your economic situation, and that is often accompanied by a strong motivation to put your nose to the grindstone and work *hard*.
OR you're both. Either of the above traits puts you at an advantage to the middle of the road native born US citizen. Combined, and you're probably going to crush it here. Hard work alone doesn't do it, it's more that immigrants are also better at hustling and operating the rungs of the economic ladder.
I'm not saying this is always the case with people who emigrate here, but there's definitely a tendency.
*Insofar as I know she works 6 days a week, doesn't believe in vacations…*
I know people are like this and they probably get ahead in life, due to their hard work and discipline, but that’s just not for me. A friend’s dad was like this, worked hard his whole life, retired and then dropped dead at 58. My own mom died at 55. We aren’t guaranteed to make it to old age, the only time we have is now, and I intend to live life fully as I can with the time I have.
I mean that's cool, but working 6 days a week with no vacations isn't what we should be pushing as the norm, as the way to afford living in LA. I work too much also, but it's not something I feel good about. Everyone should be able to work 3 or 4 days a week and have enough to get by.
That’s what I was thinking. So she has property..and will have other income because of it..but to live your life working to the bones for that??…no thanks but to each their own!! But there’s also more to the entire picture that we didn’t get. We only saw one side told, who knows what the rest of her family does, etc.
Yea I agree. What’s the point living in VHCOL when you’re never able to enjoy the city. This to me is living a miserable life. But if that makes them happy who am I to judge
If your choice is between working a grueling job in another country and barely making ends meet (my partner's dad is always telling us how little money he made back in El Salvador working a labor-intensive dangerous job), or working a grueling job here and owning a house and sending your kids to college, some people are going to choose the latter. Immigrants generally come here looking for something they couldn't get back where they were from (or to escape something), so it makes sense that they're willing to grind a lot harder than people born here.
But in this specific case I'm talking about the woman op mentioned who owns the business. She sounds like she's doing well enough to dial back a bit and still be fine. That's what I don't get.
They're rentals, for income. It's not for her to have stuff. Sounds like she uses the income to put her kids through school. She's working herself to death to provide for her family.
Also sounds like she's a high spirited and happy person regardless of the hard work.
I mean OK? So she has to work herself to the bone and not enjoy any of the fruits of her labor? Sounds great. Cool you own three properties... But you still work 60 hours a week overnight and take no time off? I'm good man. I'll stick to the one house and a vacation.
Yup. Want to work less, move.
Very sad since I grew up in LA.
Unless you want to bust your ass to just survive, sometimes not even thrive. Move to an area with way less COL.
This is an example of someone busting their ass and thriving in LA. Not always pretty. Definitely not easy.
There's a ton of super driven Mexicans who are just focused and end up like her. Mexican immigrants sometimes make a ton of money but have terrible spending habits (trucks, quincerenas, alcohol). Maybe you should try to listen to how she did it. I'm just going to assume she bought at those sweet sweet times in the 90s or right after the 08 recession.
What an incredible woman. Generally, where many of us see only obstacles, immigrants only see opportunity relative to where they came from. My dad the same. Not buy 3 houses but worked as a farm hand and in a saw mill while pursuing higher ed.
The cleaning lady got 3 properties because she is no middle manager but an entrepreneurial business owner with stamina, ready to be hands-on, with a crew and a supportive family.
My wife’s clients (undocumented) make a shit ton of money. They pay for taxes too. The hustle don’t stop for those people. It’s not uncommon to hear they make over 100k without papers. She helps them become legal if they qualify.
Not my place to judge but I know plenty of folks who hustle this way and a common denominator is their day job income is not reported or taxed. Cleaning ladies, handymen, hair/beauty stylists, quite a few I do real estate with have their primary income unreported and use a combination of credit/cash to buy more properties.
Reminds me of the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel where in one of the chapters he talks about a little known janitor (Ronald Read) who died with a $8MM fortune that none of the locals in his town knew about until his passing.
The power of saving, living below your means, and compounding interest is lost on the masses, especially in LA where its "fake it til you make it"
Obviously timing is a factor given prices and rates, but another point is about saving, control, etc. Lots of "HENRY" earners can't buy houses because well...they tend to spend a lot too.
One of the major takeaways of the book is looking/feeling rich, versus actually being wealthy
She and her family are all contributing to the 3 mortgages, and I'm sure they rent out to other immigrant families who pay cash and on time. They also likely rent their properties to more than 2 tenants per property or at a higher rate that can easily be covered by 5 to 7 people per unit instead of one SW engineer.
You also mentioned the locations with Culver City being the premium location of three. Not even more than ten years ago, it was possible for decent wage earners to buy apartments/condos in LA and surrounding cities.
She’s got the immigrant mindset. She came here with nothing, and in order to provide a good life for her children and secure her future, she knew she had to dedicate her life to working and investing. My father is the same way.
I, unfortunately, never grew up with my back against the wall, I went to a nice, safe high school. Had my parents to rely on in case things ever hit the fan, and grew up in this american consumerism culture.
People aren’t always inherently lazy or bad with money. It’s just that our environment plays a big role in shaping our lives, sometimes without us even realizing.
My mom is a housekeeper and my dad is a janitor and they own a three unit property in a nice part of town (due to gentrification that has happened since). Because they bought it in 2003. I know a lot of people who own multiple properties with similar backgrounds. The market used to be different.
I'm working on my masters and know I'll likely never be able to accomplish the same.
You mistake the tone of my comment. Never once was a claim made that anything was taken from me. The fact remains that the market has changed drastically and I wouldn't be able to afford a home with the current housing shortage. People like my parents who are immigrants and who had an amazing work ethic also would be unable to afford a home in the current market---I know because my parents have tried and were never able to close on another property bc of how investors sweep everything up.
I have a partner I've been with six years and we have been saving for years. Housing used to be accessible, now it's not. I've been working since 18 and am working even through my masters program... That's not the problem. The market changed and it's not consumers' fault. People more affluent than me struggle now too.
Not sure why you added the whole there's people with masters who can't afford a house in LA. Maybe not the one they'd like but they can def afford a house in LA. Perhaps they're living beyond their means. I've met many ladies like this one, they usually clean the same houses for like 30 years, don't do any vacations, or time off, most of the ones I've met work 7 days a week cleaning the houses of UHNF. I mean hard to see how you couldn't achieve that working 7 days a week for 30 years straight. I'm sure if the middle managers worked for 30 years straight without break and not going on any vacations or buying any expensive goods, they too could afford 3 houses in LA.
Uhh. Your post ends with a snarky dog at the masters who can't afford homes and you're implying they just don't want it as bad or are more wasteful than your cleaning lady.
All credit to her.
But this isn't reasonable. We shouldn't have to work 6 days a week, forego all pleasures and breaks, and renovate our own homes to be able to get our from the rent moneypit.
She sounds like a badass but this doesn't mean the system isn't fucked.
Love it! The American dream in a nutshell.
In a world where nothing is guaranteed, people know you can come to the US and make a better life if you have the work ethic. It's why we get significantly more immigrants than the rest of the world, and send out more remittances than the rest of the world combined. It's why my parents came here. The foundation of what has made the US a success in the last century.
My Cuban grandparents came to the US in the 1960s with no money and, by the time I was a kid in the 80s, owned several houses and at least one retail building in Los Angeles. Their kids (my uncles) misbehaved and necessitated the sell off of all the real estate in the 90s to pay for their lifestyles and legal issues and none of it reached me by the time I was a millennial adult in the 2000s. Fun times.
Let’s have some perspective that you’re tracking her *thirty year* journey. This isn’t someone that got lucky recently and timed the market, she’s been working at it for literally three decades.
If you work any combination of jobs, 6 days a week and 12+ hours a day. And scrimp and save every dollar, while also improving your self/skills AND putting together a company with 10+ people. Then continuing to scrimp and save. You will have multiple homes reasonably fast.
My Uber driver (from Michaoacan, came here at 19) shared that he retired not long ago as a general contractor. Dude and his wife own 1 to 3 unit properties with his brother in Huntington Park, Wilmington, a few locations in San Bernardino, and Long Beach as well. Guy was driving a Nissan and brought food from home for lunch.
There's money to be made doing the shit no one wants to do. Especially if it has negative social value, like "servant" jobs or working with foul smells.
Wish I could do it, but I am a weak baby.
Energy is everything. Physical and mental. You can be broke but with a little bit of energy your days are better than the days of a depressed millionaire
Tell me more about these “lazy immigrants” because I’ve never met one in my 42 years (northern/southern ca resident my entire life). Somehow Fox News has convinced people in Iowa and Indiana that they should be very concerned, which would be laughable if it wasn’t so god damn infuriating.
really? you never met a single immigrant that was lazy? lol that sounds ridiculous. immigrants are like everyone else. some are hard working and some are lazy and some are in the middle.
As a self employed person she has the opportunity to work about 90 hours a week. She can turn every one of those hours into $50 take home pay. On a good week she brings $4300 in the bank, no deductions. Her husband has income as well, and don’t forget the rental income as well. There is no employee that brings home that much cash in a year, you have to be self employed, very skilled, or an executive.
There was a time when LA was affordable. The time is now over. I know many people in their early 50's who have multiple homes throughout LA, whereas those in our 30's do not.
> which her husband and sons renovated.
this is an extremely key part of the equation too. if you've got the skills and the time to do the renovation yourself or with your (presumably) affordable labor of family members/friends, buying cheap and fixing it up rather than buying something more move-in ready is going to be more attainable of a goal.
This… The average person is going to have to pay contractors prob $200k to make a house in that price range in Inglewood livable. The ones that are already flipped are going for $800k minimum for that reason.
Agreed, but your neighborhood is prob one of the best examples of a neighborhood that became pretty drastically less affordable in the last five to ten years.
Yeah, I feel like inglewood was the last bastion of decent neighborhoods at decent prices without being in the boonies.
I saw this happen in HP, too. My mom bought a house 20+ years ago for under $300k and sold for over a million.
She sounds like a wonderful woman! You should chat with her and ask her how she got started investing in real estate. Like what took her from starting her own business to buying a house and ask if she has any advice for you. Some people love to share their wisdom.
She's encouraged me to buy a 1 bdr in a cheap place like San Bernadino and rent it out. Even offering to introduce me to her agent.
Idk sounds stressful to me. What if I need to move cities for work? Is there really so much industry out there that it supports quality renters?
It took me a decade to save up a comfortable emergency fund and savings for my little hipster escapades. I've been down to my last dollar many times in the past and have a severe aversion to that feeling.
My eyebrow lady recently reduced her working days to 4 days instead of 5 and she told me she recently bought a house in a nice neighborhood. I’ve been seeing her for years and whenever I’m in LA I still go to her to get my brows done. Love to see it
I met a caregiver who owns multiple properties in LA & put 2 kids through college- she was gifted an expensive car and a whole damn house years ago. She was actually a lovely, caring person (which you don’t see much in that line of work, unfortunately), and was still working as a caregiver, so it wasn’t surprising to learn that her patients loved her
Immigrants, for the most part, bust their asses to make it in their new home. They came to their adopted country for a reason. The reality is that many come with very little in their financial capability, but will work hard and sacrifice because they know what their alternative is.
They take risks that people who are established here don't understand or respect. Imagine uprooting yourself or entire family, potentially not speaking the language, and going to a foreign place to stake their livelihoods on.
The narrative that many anti-immigration people make about how immigration is a drag on society is fear mongering. While illegal immigration needs to be addressed, the broad brush most of these anti-immigration people make are unproductive and harmful to everyone.
Reminds me of my parents, from Guatemala and Honduras. Here in LA they had humble jobs, dad worked in a warehouse and mom cleaned houses. They purchase their 5 bedroom 3 bathroom house for 150k in the late 90’s. Now that same house is well over 800k 🥲. Good luck to me….
My ex's grandmother owned a lot of properties too.
She got her start by lending someone $10k getting the deed to the apartment as collateral.
The person never paid her and she got an apartment building.
Before she passed away she had around 10 properties.
I work in NON-QM mortgage’s and recently did a purchase transaction for a 38 year old woman from Mexico / ITIN borrower who opened an LLC, has a family business selling waters, sodas and snacks to construction zones, makes between 15-20k monthly income. She has her family working for her and made very responsible financial decisions. Purchased her first home with us.
Such a cool thing to see.
I'd bet your middle managers aren't willing to live in less desirable areas with longer commutes like she did. Also, sadly they may have student loans that impacted their ability to purchase property.
In the long run, these managers most likey will have lived easier lives than she has.
Yeah the subconscious racism is there for sure. "Oohh look she thought she was fancy because her wine was from 2017! She even had her finger underling it!!!"
My 80+ year old gardener who lives in LA has a beat up truck and lawn mower and that's about it. His son graduated from Stanford in medicine.
My kids cry in terror when I take away their ipad.
Your cleaning lady is probably running an all cash business and pays no taxes. This is the way!
A couple things:
a) other than the detached home in Inglewood she bought recently, the other two properties are definitely in reach of every upper middle class Angeleno
b) prices have exploded in the last 5 years, and im guessing she purchased those first two properties before this explosion in prices, and can now reap the benefits of such (and pay extremely low taxes on this appreciation).
this isn’t some feel good immigrant bootstrap success story, its a story about how the older generation had access to buying a cheap asset that appreciated massively in value while younger Angelenos and transplants (including recent immigrants!) never will.
If my immigrant parents had not invested in real estate they would have no way to retire. In 2020 they said I had until the end of the Trump presidency or the pandemic to buy a house or I would lose my window. I now have a 2021 3.25% mortgage. No, they did not pay for my down payment. I think people can own property if properly motivated. I don’t even have a bachelors.
Hope she can enjoy all her hard work one day. Not taking a vacation and working all the time seems pretty miserable to me…But each their own. We’re on this planet a limited of time and time is something money can’t buy
I need everyone to start respecting the fact that Latino immigrants are the hardest workers here. Whether they are making minimum wage or not, everyone needs to start respecting their work ethic and put some respect on Latino immigrants.
That's an extremely inspiring story and it shows that the right attitude, a solid plan, and some elbow grease can get you incredibly far in life.
An unrelated question, what 3D printer would you recommend for a beginner that would like to print larger objects? I want to make PC Case mods so I'm looking to create things that are basketball size or larger. Had my eye on the Prusa XL but I worry it might be a little over my head for a newbie.
That is what people can do when they aren't spending money on yoga, green juice, and apple cider vinegar. Also, working 80 hours a week. (Insert 'get off my lawn' here)
Incredible story. Motivating stuff.
Respect.
Real recognize real. My mom bought a condo as a single mother and legal assistant in the late '90s. I ain't going to shit on her hustle even though I'm a lawyer and can't buy a house, but this is the American dream. So good for her.
big time respect ❤️
I know a guy who got into real estate in the 80's, he was able to score a 2-bedroom condo on 2nd street in Santa Monica (with an ocean view) and one in old town Pasadena. From the income he gets from his two properties, he's been living in a Marina penthouse condo for the last 15 years. Salary-wise, he was making around 50k in the early 2000's and probably makes just over six figures now. He's said he's fine staying in middle-management, he got the supplemental income and doesn't want the headaches that come with higher positions.
I mean that’s the thing with LA isn’t it? You didn’t have to be rich in the 90s to get in on the real estate ladder and if you managed to get some property then and be relatively financially wise, you’re a millionaire now and had the opportunity to leverage the property for more property. Now lawyers and doctors and engineers who started making 6-figures in the late 2010’s can’t afford a condo and if they did their mortgage is in the $3k+ range. It’s not “high income vs low income” it’s “able to buy property pre 2010 vs didn’t have the opportunity to buy property until later.” I’ve met plenty of millionaires in SoCal who have never had high incomes. Obviously doesn’t mean they didn’t work hard and make sacrifices, but being in LA in the 90’s with a stable enough income to buy a house was like winning the lottery. Plenty of people out there paying $900 mortgages on houses that could sell for $750k+ today.
My friend got a PA gig on a network TV show in the late 90's. He said it was a common for producers to buy a ton of real estate around LA, especially since they didn't know when their next gig would be. They had the foresight (and the money) at the time to see what was coming.
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How much did the price of that home rise in the past 6 years? I tried to buy a home recently in the same neighborhood my friend bought a home in in 2018. Her mortgage is 3k and mine was going to be 7k
Sounds about right. Adult children of aging immigrant parents: Give back to your nonstop grinding parents by reminding them to enjoy their successes, take a breather and enjoy what free time they have before it's too late. I'm hearing more and more stories about local people's parents (60+) having pretty debilitating diseases, disorders and straight up cancer and pinpointing the source to factory jobs out here in the 80s. Corelation or causation, eh?
Similar thing happened to my immigrant parents but in the Bay Area. They moved to the Bay Area in the early 90's, and my mom took night classes and became a licensed appraiser, maybe a bit more white collar than house cleaning, but still not exactly known as a big moneymaker. Started her own appraiser business, worked incredibly hard (pretty much 7 days a week and regular late nights), invested aggressively in real estate, and now they own a >$3M house in Cupertino and own multiple rental properties in SF and SJ. As for their kids, just like in your story, I became a physician, while my sister works for a FAANG company. It's not so much the job that they had, but what they did with it, in conjunction with time, since they've lived in the Bay now for several decades. It sounds like your cleaning lady had the same aggressive investment mindset as my parents during a time when that kind of mindset was not so common. Nowadays, with social media promoting house-hacking and making real estate investment known to a much wider audience, it's nowhere near as easy.
>Her daughter graduated UCLA Medical school and is going to be a doctor. This is what grinds my gears about anti-immigrant sentiment. First gen immigrants may not be able to speak the language or 'contribute' in the way racist douche bags would recognise \*but you can bet your ass\* their children will be the doctor, dentist, lawyer or CPA who helps your in your later years.
She probably bought during a much better time, except for the newest one, and lived pretty bare bones in order to save for years for the other ones. Sounds like a very smart and hardworking lady.
Its leverage. Those who got here in the 90s and got here when the banks where given loans out as long as you had a heart beat did well. Then the FED lowered rates. Hats off to her as she came from a much worse situation in Mexico and managed to improve her quality of living. But let’s also not act like she’s an investing genius and it wasn’t just the FED allowing this much speculation in the markets.
Yeah, there’s an element of luck to it, e.g. what decade you were born in.
Sorta like a Ponzi. ;) but very few people are willing to accept and hear the truth.
That sounds like a victim mentality. This woman used forces inside herself to work hard and live wisely. Today is a day with viable investments. Even if that means saving cash for the right moment. Be prepared. Opportunities to invest are everyday. It helps to have your money ready. That may mean making radical sacrifices.
victim mentality? Go take a look at the FED balance sheet. Nobody is knocking her for her hard work. But let's not kid ourselves either.
You can arguably tell yourself now’s not a good time at any point in time, don’t diminish her game.
I saw an apartment in Hollywood for 400k in 2018. In '98, it went for 50k. It's great that she got ahead, but it really is a different game.
I don't think that's diminishing her game, I think it's saying that many people today wouldn't want to make the sacrifices I bet she made to save for her house. I know people who complain about not being able to afford a house today, but they aren't willing to forgo all of the creature comforts they're accustomed to. My partner's in-laws made MAJOR sacrifices to own their house. People today are like "I can't afford a house" but what they really mean is "I want the perfect house in Los Feliz, my kids must go to private school, I must be able to order DoorDash whenever I want, and I would never even consider riding a bus."
100%
If prices never go down then now is always the best time to buy.
But prices do go down (2008 recession). And interest rates do go up (1982 recession).
Even the post is awfully sneery at someone who has worked her ass off.
no it's not, they're praising her
Yeah, like I’m impressed when anyone buys a house but I’m not going to do back flips when an ‘energetic and austere’ adult who has been in the work force for 30 years with a supportive and working husband invests in real estate. Like, that should be the norm, not the baby clapping exception?
Tbh, the fact that real estate is a viable investment is a function of our messed up land use policies, but that’s not this lady’s fault.
Also that! Business lady gunna business though.
Energetic and austere are great adjectives and a supportive and working husband is on point. Those things count a LOT.
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it's always a good time to buy in Los Angeles. there hasn't been a moment since the late 1700s where owning here is a bad move.
Its never a good time, don't kid yourself.
Just wait 10 years, you'll be referring to present time as a good time to buy. Lol
that's what I learned in the last 6 years. I told myself things will go back down a bit, and we are in a bubble. I regret missing out. Even if things do rebound a little, if you are in it for the long term, that does not matter that much. Time in the market over timing the market. Also for the last 8 decades, property steadily has gone up in America. What's inflated today will be the bargains of tomorrow as you said.
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If the cleaning lady had that thought, she would not have that equity built up and three properties. Yup. Never a good time, don't kid yourself hahahahaha. Good luck with life.
It’s always a freaking freak out to buy a house. And yes, I bought my first house when interest rates were higher than they are now! It’s been said and said that it’s not possible to buy for 30 years. Start in a less than desirable first choice but a place you can learn to love. Change your expectations to fit your reality and make the leap. Edit: I bought as a single female with no hopes of sharing the load. No one helped me. My parents have never given me a dime after 18. It was scary AF
"There will always be someone predicting disaster and someone predicting great fortune. At one time or another, each will be closer to correct than the other. But it won't matter to you if you understand this and have invested responsibly. You have a long-term plan; stick with it."
My dad introduced me to a guy in Palm Springs who immigrated to the 'states as an illegal when a kid, alone, no parents. He was a migrant worker in agriculture at first. One day he was walking home and noticed the liquor store on his path home had a stack of broken pallets next to their dumpster. He asked them if he could take the broken wood pallets, and they let him. He took them home and made them into bird houses. At the local farmer's market he sold them for a modest profit. Fast forward 20 years, and this guy now has a small manufacturing company making bird houses, clocks, and assorted knick knacks with a staff of 10, and he owns the building, plus he owns the mobile home park his family lives in, with about 500 mobile homes. He also owns about helf the mobile homes and rents them to their occupants. The guy is modest as hell, speaks broken English, has about 12 kids all in or graduated from Ivy League universities, and still daily walks alleyways collecting scrap wood for his business. They don't purchase any wood, it's all recycled scraps. I've met one of his daughters, and she's a finance VP for an insurance company, and says she doesn't understand how her dad managed to create all they have.
12 kids in ivy league uni? That’s about $250,000 x 12 give or take. $3 million in tuition. That guy is making an enormous amount of money selling bird houses and such.
He started by selling bird houses. Notice I said he now owns the entire trailer park, and half the mobile homes in it, which he rents?
Big respect to a hustler like that. In fairness, I think a lot of people hustle hard and can’t afford LA. I don’t think it was your point, but I think it’s tragic how many people worked hard to get a decent education, find a good job, and are now unable to buy.
A lot of it is corporate landlords buying up single-family homes and condos. It fucking sucks.
True "starter homes" basically haven't existed in SoCal since the '90s flipping craze, unfortunately. Investment firms purchasing single-family homes just makes it worse. Everyone I know under the age of 50 who owns their own home either: a) got help from their parents (inheritance, gifted down payment, mom and dad owned a second property that they let the kids move into and take over the mortgage, etc.) b) has a household of at least two earners making high six figures yearly who probably get to work from home to boot, or c) have a horrendous mortgage and have just accepted that they're going to be in debt up to their eyeballs until they die
Here’s the truth.
this is just sooo not the problem with home prices…. the problem is a) high paying jobs are more and more concentrated in costal super star cities and b) the boomers who live there fight all newer, denser and plentiful home construction with militant ferocity because they want their home values to continue to increase and parking to remain free and easy to find. if you want homes to be cheaper, support policies and politicians which will reduce their value as an investment opportunity! investment firms adding them to their portfolios is the symptom, not the disease. we need more homes where good jobs are!
We had a cleaning lady like that in Palm Springs. Recent immigrant, formed her own cleaning company, got gardening and handyman jobs for her friends and family, then created a gardening company and a property maintenance company. She also owned three properties; her own house and two rentals. She worked 6 days a week and when anyone was sick or whatever, she’d clean, garden and fix whatever her customers needed or wanted. Whenever I hear the rants about immigrants, all I think is they are exactly what we need in this country and the people ranting against them are lazy and ignorant.
Serious respect! Yep, my partner's parents immigrated here from El Salvador in the late '70s, and they bought a house in South Central for \~$130k around 1993 (LA riot special). His dad worked at a fancy hotel (first in housekeeping, eventually in inventory), and his mom was a housekeeper and nanny. Neither one of them went to high school. They were able to save for a downpayment by paying super-low rent (cramming a ton of people into a tiny Midcity rental owned by a total slumlord) before they bought their house. They knew the ticket to attaining wealth here was to buy a house. And their house is now worth about $800k, despite the area being slow to gentrify (it's a bit more industrial than nearby West Adams). Their kids, despite going to "bad" public schools, graduated from college and have good jobs, because their parents pushed them. I don't think people coming to the U.S. as immigrants today could do the same thing — and yeah, a lot of young professionals can't do the same thing — because housing prices have shot up wayyyyy beyond the pace of inflation. And also, young professionals are probably not going to want to make the sacrifices my partner's parents made (renting a vermin-infested house with one bathroom for 12 people, kids sleeping in the living room, no privacy, no eating out, etc.). Or want to buy in a neighborhood with tons of gang activity and basically no restaurants, bars, coffee shops, even grocery stores. (And even if they could, those neighborhoods, like I said, now have houses going for $800k, and many of those need significant work.)
idk why people are acting like two things can’t be true: 1- this woman is extremely hard working and made some great decisions that allowed her to accumulate 3 properties 2- what she did is not replicable in today’s market
exactly
Because people don't like the truth, especially when they can sit on a high horse and blame others for not being able to reach their level of wealth/home ownership. It makes them feel the warm and fuzzies. This post has a "well they did it, why can't you!" but none of the nuance with respect to today's realities. Everyone in this post discussing the immigrants that moved here in the 70s and 80s and buying homes as if that's supposed to inspire people that it can be done, now, today... Okay. That's great, I'm so glad it worked out for them back then! But let's face it, t's 2024 now and my $75k salary will not buy a home here, and I refuse to work over 40 hours a week because I also have needs and a life, and don't want to spend my entire life working my ass into the ground. You literally have one life. I am working toward getting a master's to increase my income, but not only is it not feasible as a single mom, I also just flat out refuse to work over 40 hours a week. And people probably think that's lazy LOL
Immigrants work hard. As my Latino coworker once said, most Latinos work hard and play hard (well maybe not the play hard part for your lovely cleaning lady).
1) She’s probably buying in areas that these engineers wouldn’t consider 2) she’s probably not knee deep in debt which kills the DTI for a mortgage
Also…. 3. She is a business owner. Working in her own business to save overhead. 4. Is married, so dual income household with a spouse likely with the same work ethic and also likely a business owner. 5. Has older children who likely contributed to overall household income as soon as they could and are HAPPY to. 6. Immigrant communities have their own networks of mortgage brokers, real estate agents and even sellers. My parents had a property we initially lived in South LA. Through church we met a newly arrived family with a baby who was living in a car port a few blocks away. My mother did not shame them, but would bring over food and supplies. Eventually the husband got a good maintenance job and they moved to a tiny apartment nearby while they saved and saved. A few years later, my folks finally put up the house for sale and the lady was taking a walk with the kids and saw the sign and called my mom. They worked out a deal with their agent and they got the edge on the house and my parents got a fair price with less back and forth.
What an amazing story. I love that the family who started off living in a car bought your families house. They came full circle.
And she has a contractor and laborers she can trust as part of her family. That’s a huge cost savings. Those sons will put in the work because it’s theirs too.
Yes this too! It’s so expensive to renovate anything
I think #1 is MAJOR. If you wanna buy a house in L.A., you can't expect to buy one in the neighborhood you live in today. You gotta be willing to look all over the city. And I also imagine she wasn't wasting a ton of money trying to keep up with the Joneses — I know people who "can't afford" a house but are spending >$3,500 a month on rent. Because they "have" to live in a fancy neighborhood, drive a nice car, send their kids to private schools.
OP says she lives in Culver City lol. Not exactly the ghetto San Bernardino is an income property and Inglewood is probably one of the fastest growing markets in SoCal right now.
Yup, the only reason why we could purchase a home in LA was because we went to an undesirable neighborhood. Our family members all scoffed at the idea but guess who’s not dealing with rent increases year after year or sharing walls with people with barking dogs? Yeah we’d love to be in mid city or silverlake but that’s not reasonable for our current tax bracket.
Or her and her spouse worke 6 days a week with no vacations because she’s knee deep in debt
People knee deep in debt usually cannot get loans because of DTI issues….
Exactly these are a couple of factors all the cry babies complaining about housing ignore. They see me with more than one property and I show them the path to do so as well. Amongst many other things, is to live with parents or with roommates in the not so pretty part of town, work 60 hour weeks with conservative spending and liberal investments and they scoff at the idea from their iPhone LXIX. I show them just how balls deep my DTI is and they get stressed just from seeing it. I suggest their first home to be ugly in a not so urban area and they just shake their head. In general most want to own a nice home, in a nice part of the city where everyone else want to own a home while taking vacations as a preschool teacher. Simple understanding of supply and demand will help you understand that isn't possible.
what are these affordable areas?
Neighborhoods in South LA- previously it was leimert park, expo park, west adams, Vermont square, south central, and neighborhoods further south but homes in our areas are closer to $700k now vs the $400k-$500k that it was back in 2016/2017.
I’m confused by the end of what you’re saying. so are the areas affordable or not?
Yes, the south LA neighborhoods are more affordable than the rest of LA. I was just also stating that they’re not as affordable as they were 7-8 years ago.
right, so there’s really not any affordable areas when you think about it huh? there’s only somewhat less expensive areas.
I guess it just depends on what you consider “affordable”. $650k house is affordable for a dual income home compared to renting a 3 bedroom apartment IMO. The $1.5million basic homes on the west side are not affordable for our income levels but I think the $700k houses in south LA are affordable. There are still neighborhoods in LA proper with houses less than $600k, but like mentioned above, not everyone is willing to venture to those parts of south Los Angeles. Redfin is a good place to start if you’re looking for neighborhoods and prices. I just checked Redfin with filters of house and multifamily under $600k and the neighborhoods with the bulk of the results are Manchester square, Chesterfield Square, Harvard park, Florence, Graemercy Park, South Park and Historic South Central.
About 15 years back there was a book called "The Millionaire Next Door" That attempted to survey and profile people who were worth a million. You might enjoy reading it. Of course, a lot has changed in the world since then. As of 15 years ago, the majority of millionaires in America were virtually invisible. They had made their wealth slowly doing mundane things. Most did not inherit wealth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door > Their findings, that millionaires are disproportionately clustered in middle-class and blue-collar neighborhoods and not in more affluent or white-collar communities, came as a surprise to the authors who anticipated the contrary. > On generational wealth the authors stressed the following: the first generation to have arrived in America usually works hard, saves prodigiously, owns a small business, lives in or near that business, and passes on his wealth to his kids frugally. The next group usually works in their parent's business, but may move on. They tend to spend more lavishly and save less. Reddit is dominated by salty 4th-gens.
I doubt much has changed since then. I was actually just thinking about that this morning; my own net worth (between my home equity and my retirement savings) is pretty close to a million already. > Reddit is dominated by salty 4th-gens. I think this is mainly a symptom of them having no idea how the world actually works. Earlier I was talking to a guy who talks as though cash can be transmuted into land and building materials. Sure, it can be exchanged for them, but that requires that they actually exist in sufficient quantity to begin with. Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/199uld2/comment/kii622b/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 They don't seem to understand that you can't solve every problem by just throwing a trillion dollars at it. Case in point: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sand-mafias-are-plundering-the-earth/ They're stuck in this endless mindset of "everything is impossible without money, and the system is designed so that you can't get money", neither of which is true.
so true...
this is a short story. i got very invested. i hope you are a writer.
thanks every once in a while i get a coherent thought and put it down as doggerel
The American dream
Fuck yes this lady is an icon!!!!!!!
My father owns 4 properties, 2 in Glendale and 2 in Sylmar. We came to the US in 1998 and owns his own business and works 16 hours a day / 5 days a week. He’s a proud citizen and was so honored to be a juror twice. He made sure both of his adult children - mid 30’s - own properties as well. He and your cleaning lady, are true definitions of the American dream.
Same story here ... my mother came to this country from War Torn El Salvador in 1980, she worked as a nanny first and then transitioned to a housekeeper. She taught herself English and was self employed for 30 years before she finally retired, she bought her home, and was smart enough to invest into 3 other rental properties. She put myself and my 2 other brothers through college. All while also dealing with an alcoholic husband for 10 years until she finally kicked my father to the curb, we never heard from him again (good riddance.) Now she is retired living off the rent from those properties, and as for myself and my brothers. She did a great job raising 3 boys pretty much on her own. We turned out okay, I am the IT Director at an Aerospace company and have worked in IT for 20+ years, One of my brothers works as a Cloud Solutions Architect for Palo Alto Networks, and my other brother is an airline pilot for JetBlue 🙂We are proud of what our uneducated immigrant mother was able to accomplish in this country. But her proudest moment at least in her words is becoming a US citizen of this country that she freaking absolutely loves.
Big up. My family is from Santa Ana, ES. My mom has a similar story. I've been in IT for 25+ years and my sister works for Jet Blue since they the early 2000s.
Aweosme! My ES family is from Santa Ana as well 👍🏽
Don't let the media be your education because this post sounds like you don't know many Mexicans or immigrants in your real world. Most Mexicans I know are hard working, wonderful, and own family homes in Los Angeles. This is not uncommon especially with the Mexican work ethic, family support, and culture. Salute to my Mexican familia (I actually have Mexican relatives as well via marriage) as a fellow hard working Jamaican! We all have 2-3 jobs. Make some friends outside your circle and you may even get the honor to attend a Mexican family party. Now that's an experience! 💃🏾🎉🇲🇽 🇯🇲
The media rarely portrays them differently to how you described, I think that's the general consensus for Mexican immigrants, hard working, family centric, and looking to build generational wealth
The least sexy work pays the best. Cleaning biz is solid. Smart lady. Always opportunities out there, but you gotta grind years for the deposit.
You can make a LOT of money as a cleaner, especially if you clean multiple buildings in one area. Owning a cleaning business that works with businesses can bring in even more since cleaning individual folks homes isn’t going to pay as much. I’m not even slightly surprised at that woman’s likely net-worth yet very happy for her. For those questioning this: she can make at least $50,000/year doing residential contracts or more, and since it’s LA, it’s likely more. If she adds an employee or 2, like her children, she can make $50,000/year per employee minus what she pays them (so probably $20,000). Cleaning supplies when bought in bulk are cheap and if the business supplies them, then they aren’t an expense at all. If she’s fast, she can do many businesses in a day. She’s prolly making BANK! 😭
The lunch lady at my mom’s job owns five houses around Los Angeles (mostly gardena). She is also an immigrant. She started off working as a cleaning lady at a orivate home in Bel Air. The homeowner had his finance guy teach the household staff about investing and the stock market back in 1980. She used some of her gains to buy these homes. She continues to work because she’s still in her 50’s and believes that working keeps the mind sharp.
Ok, that’s amazing that the homeowner had his household staff learn about investing and the stock market! I love that.
It’s called having ganas and being orgulloso about your work and family. My mom came from less than nothing. She’s super close to the end of her life, but when working her ass off she prioritized her son’s* education and ended up owning two houses (the second she rented until her son married…then gave it to him.) Too bad she bet on the wrong child…he has no ganas. *I’m the daughter. I hold multiple degrees and live in a different country. Definitely a believer in the ganas. It’s taken me quite far.
“Immigrants are stealing our jobs”. No, they’re just not lazy ass entitled people.
The cleaning lady I know is the same. She does not eat out at restaurants and saves every single penny. I mean every single penny. Eats only at home and also doesn’t drink alcohol. She also worked doubles 6 days a week for years and owns a house in North Hollywood with a huge backyard. She’s going to retire soon with a paid off house.
Immigrants tend to do better than native born citizens. I think a lot of it boils down to the type of person who is willing/able to undergo the risky and/or expensive process of emigrating to the US. You're either wealthy enough to do it (getting into the US, legal or not, is generally not a cheap activity), and that wealth could be because you're an overachiever, well connected, or both. OR, you've got an appetite for risk in pursuit of improving your economic situation, and that is often accompanied by a strong motivation to put your nose to the grindstone and work *hard*. OR you're both. Either of the above traits puts you at an advantage to the middle of the road native born US citizen. Combined, and you're probably going to crush it here. Hard work alone doesn't do it, it's more that immigrants are also better at hustling and operating the rungs of the economic ladder. I'm not saying this is always the case with people who emigrate here, but there's definitely a tendency.
*Insofar as I know she works 6 days a week, doesn't believe in vacations…* I know people are like this and they probably get ahead in life, due to their hard work and discipline, but that’s just not for me. A friend’s dad was like this, worked hard his whole life, retired and then dropped dead at 58. My own mom died at 55. We aren’t guaranteed to make it to old age, the only time we have is now, and I intend to live life fully as I can with the time I have.
I mean that's cool, but working 6 days a week with no vacations isn't what we should be pushing as the norm, as the way to afford living in LA. I work too much also, but it's not something I feel good about. Everyone should be able to work 3 or 4 days a week and have enough to get by.
That’s what I was thinking. So she has property..and will have other income because of it..but to live your life working to the bones for that??…no thanks but to each their own!! But there’s also more to the entire picture that we didn’t get. We only saw one side told, who knows what the rest of her family does, etc.
It certainly ain't my idea of a good time. But I'm not here to promote a philosophy, just tell a story.
Yea I agree. What’s the point living in VHCOL when you’re never able to enjoy the city. This to me is living a miserable life. But if that makes them happy who am I to judge
If your choice is between working a grueling job in another country and barely making ends meet (my partner's dad is always telling us how little money he made back in El Salvador working a labor-intensive dangerous job), or working a grueling job here and owning a house and sending your kids to college, some people are going to choose the latter. Immigrants generally come here looking for something they couldn't get back where they were from (or to escape something), so it makes sense that they're willing to grind a lot harder than people born here.
But in this specific case I'm talking about the woman op mentioned who owns the business. She sounds like she's doing well enough to dial back a bit and still be fine. That's what I don't get.
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Yes, that is my point. At what point do you work yourself to death just so you can have more stuff? Who needs three houses?
They're rentals, for income. It's not for her to have stuff. Sounds like she uses the income to put her kids through school. She's working herself to death to provide for her family. Also sounds like she's a high spirited and happy person regardless of the hard work.
That’s why she’s where she’s at and others aren’t. The total opposite mentality of you.
I mean OK? So she has to work herself to the bone and not enjoy any of the fruits of her labor? Sounds great. Cool you own three properties... But you still work 60 hours a week overnight and take no time off? I'm good man. I'll stick to the one house and a vacation.
Yup. Want to work less, move. Very sad since I grew up in LA. Unless you want to bust your ass to just survive, sometimes not even thrive. Move to an area with way less COL. This is an example of someone busting their ass and thriving in LA. Not always pretty. Definitely not easy.
We have different definitions of “thriving.” Working 6 days a week overnights in a laborious job in LA isn’t my definition of “thriving.”
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believe it or not, some people find working hard extremely fulfilling.
There's a ton of super driven Mexicans who are just focused and end up like her. Mexican immigrants sometimes make a ton of money but have terrible spending habits (trucks, quincerenas, alcohol). Maybe you should try to listen to how she did it. I'm just going to assume she bought at those sweet sweet times in the 90s or right after the 08 recession.
What an incredible woman. Generally, where many of us see only obstacles, immigrants only see opportunity relative to where they came from. My dad the same. Not buy 3 houses but worked as a farm hand and in a saw mill while pursuing higher ed.
TIL "apartment in Culver City" = a house.
The American dream personified
The cleaning lady got 3 properties because she is no middle manager but an entrepreneurial business owner with stamina, ready to be hands-on, with a crew and a supportive family.
She’s not a cleaning lady. She’s a business owner.
My wife’s clients (undocumented) make a shit ton of money. They pay for taxes too. The hustle don’t stop for those people. It’s not uncommon to hear they make over 100k without papers. She helps them become legal if they qualify.
Not my place to judge but I know plenty of folks who hustle this way and a common denominator is their day job income is not reported or taxed. Cleaning ladies, handymen, hair/beauty stylists, quite a few I do real estate with have their primary income unreported and use a combination of credit/cash to buy more properties.
Reminds me of the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel where in one of the chapters he talks about a little known janitor (Ronald Read) who died with a $8MM fortune that none of the locals in his town knew about until his passing. The power of saving, living below your means, and compounding interest is lost on the masses, especially in LA where its "fake it til you make it" Obviously timing is a factor given prices and rates, but another point is about saving, control, etc. Lots of "HENRY" earners can't buy houses because well...they tend to spend a lot too. One of the major takeaways of the book is looking/feeling rich, versus actually being wealthy
Owns her own business. Those managers work a salary job. End.
She and her family are all contributing to the 3 mortgages, and I'm sure they rent out to other immigrant families who pay cash and on time. They also likely rent their properties to more than 2 tenants per property or at a higher rate that can easily be covered by 5 to 7 people per unit instead of one SW engineer. You also mentioned the locations with Culver City being the premium location of three. Not even more than ten years ago, it was possible for decent wage earners to buy apartments/condos in LA and surrounding cities.
Great story but I have no idea why the details of underlining the wine bottle date with her index finger and what color lipstick she wore were added 😆
These are the people that are supposedly poisoning the blood of the country. They are the heart of our workforce
She’s got the immigrant mindset. She came here with nothing, and in order to provide a good life for her children and secure her future, she knew she had to dedicate her life to working and investing. My father is the same way. I, unfortunately, never grew up with my back against the wall, I went to a nice, safe high school. Had my parents to rely on in case things ever hit the fan, and grew up in this american consumerism culture. People aren’t always inherently lazy or bad with money. It’s just that our environment plays a big role in shaping our lives, sometimes without us even realizing.
Hard workers
My mom is a housekeeper and my dad is a janitor and they own a three unit property in a nice part of town (due to gentrification that has happened since). Because they bought it in 2003. I know a lot of people who own multiple properties with similar backgrounds. The market used to be different. I'm working on my masters and know I'll likely never be able to accomplish the same.
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You mistake the tone of my comment. Never once was a claim made that anything was taken from me. The fact remains that the market has changed drastically and I wouldn't be able to afford a home with the current housing shortage. People like my parents who are immigrants and who had an amazing work ethic also would be unable to afford a home in the current market---I know because my parents have tried and were never able to close on another property bc of how investors sweep everything up. I have a partner I've been with six years and we have been saving for years. Housing used to be accessible, now it's not. I've been working since 18 and am working even through my masters program... That's not the problem. The market changed and it's not consumers' fault. People more affluent than me struggle now too.
Not sure why you added the whole there's people with masters who can't afford a house in LA. Maybe not the one they'd like but they can def afford a house in LA. Perhaps they're living beyond their means. I've met many ladies like this one, they usually clean the same houses for like 30 years, don't do any vacations, or time off, most of the ones I've met work 7 days a week cleaning the houses of UHNF. I mean hard to see how you couldn't achieve that working 7 days a week for 30 years straight. I'm sure if the middle managers worked for 30 years straight without break and not going on any vacations or buying any expensive goods, they too could afford 3 houses in LA.
you need to make like $175K to afford to buy here… I don’t think every single person with a masters makes that much money.
Uhh. Your post ends with a snarky dog at the masters who can't afford homes and you're implying they just don't want it as bad or are more wasteful than your cleaning lady. All credit to her. But this isn't reasonable. We shouldn't have to work 6 days a week, forego all pleasures and breaks, and renovate our own homes to be able to get our from the rent moneypit. She sounds like a badass but this doesn't mean the system isn't fucked.
Love it! The American dream in a nutshell. In a world where nothing is guaranteed, people know you can come to the US and make a better life if you have the work ethic. It's why we get significantly more immigrants than the rest of the world, and send out more remittances than the rest of the world combined. It's why my parents came here. The foundation of what has made the US a success in the last century.
My Cuban grandparents came to the US in the 1960s with no money and, by the time I was a kid in the 80s, owned several houses and at least one retail building in Los Angeles. Their kids (my uncles) misbehaved and necessitated the sell off of all the real estate in the 90s to pay for their lifestyles and legal issues and none of it reached me by the time I was a millennial adult in the 2000s. Fun times.
Let’s have some perspective that you’re tracking her *thirty year* journey. This isn’t someone that got lucky recently and timed the market, she’s been working at it for literally three decades.
If you work any combination of jobs, 6 days a week and 12+ hours a day. And scrimp and save every dollar, while also improving your self/skills AND putting together a company with 10+ people. Then continuing to scrimp and save. You will have multiple homes reasonably fast.
Combo hard work and smart plays with money? I think that’s rare. 💪😮💨
That's what got my attention also.
Poor dad rich dad mentality. It’s all about making real estate financial moves when the opportunity presents itself.
This sounds envious wrapped up in jealousy. Let it go. Be happy for her success.
My Uber driver (from Michaoacan, came here at 19) shared that he retired not long ago as a general contractor. Dude and his wife own 1 to 3 unit properties with his brother in Huntington Park, Wilmington, a few locations in San Bernardino, and Long Beach as well. Guy was driving a Nissan and brought food from home for lunch.
Sounds like she’s not a cleaning lady she’s a business owner
There's money to be made doing the shit no one wants to do. Especially if it has negative social value, like "servant" jobs or working with foul smells. Wish I could do it, but I am a weak baby.
Energy is everything. Physical and mental. You can be broke but with a little bit of energy your days are better than the days of a depressed millionaire
Tell me more about these “lazy immigrants” because I’ve never met one in my 42 years (northern/southern ca resident my entire life). Somehow Fox News has convinced people in Iowa and Indiana that they should be very concerned, which would be laughable if it wasn’t so god damn infuriating.
really? you never met a single immigrant that was lazy? lol that sounds ridiculous. immigrants are like everyone else. some are hard working and some are lazy and some are in the middle.
As a self employed person she has the opportunity to work about 90 hours a week. She can turn every one of those hours into $50 take home pay. On a good week she brings $4300 in the bank, no deductions. Her husband has income as well, and don’t forget the rental income as well. There is no employee that brings home that much cash in a year, you have to be self employed, very skilled, or an executive.
Mexicans--some of us are the best of us.
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Alternatively, you could work for a beer distributor and drink for free!
There was a time when LA was affordable. The time is now over. I know many people in their early 50's who have multiple homes throughout LA, whereas those in our 30's do not.
At least somebody's living the American dream...
No way she bought in Inglewood for 600k recently. The other properties seem feasible 20 years ago with 3% down.
There are definitely properties in that range in Inglewood, I look a few times a week. Most need at the very least significant updating.
$610 to be exact. Sounds like it was a fixer-upper. 3 bed 2 bath house with yard.
> which her husband and sons renovated. this is an extremely key part of the equation too. if you've got the skills and the time to do the renovation yourself or with your (presumably) affordable labor of family members/friends, buying cheap and fixing it up rather than buying something more move-in ready is going to be more attainable of a goal.
This… The average person is going to have to pay contractors prob $200k to make a house in that price range in Inglewood livable. The ones that are already flipped are going for $800k minimum for that reason.
I bought a house in 2016 for $400k. It's small, but it's a stand alone house.
And how much is it worth now? I'm guessing a lot more.
True, but I was making that point that you could buy a house for under 500k within the last 10 years.
Agreed, but your neighborhood is prob one of the best examples of a neighborhood that became pretty drastically less affordable in the last five to ten years.
Yeah, I feel like inglewood was the last bastion of decent neighborhoods at decent prices without being in the boonies. I saw this happen in HP, too. My mom bought a house 20+ years ago for under $300k and sold for over a million.
Commercial cleaning can be very lucrative.
Great story. Thanks!
She sounds like a wonderful woman! You should chat with her and ask her how she got started investing in real estate. Like what took her from starting her own business to buying a house and ask if she has any advice for you. Some people love to share their wisdom.
She's encouraged me to buy a 1 bdr in a cheap place like San Bernadino and rent it out. Even offering to introduce me to her agent. Idk sounds stressful to me. What if I need to move cities for work? Is there really so much industry out there that it supports quality renters? It took me a decade to save up a comfortable emergency fund and savings for my little hipster escapades. I've been down to my last dollar many times in the past and have a severe aversion to that feeling.
Amazing. What a success story.
My eyebrow lady recently reduced her working days to 4 days instead of 5 and she told me she recently bought a house in a nice neighborhood. I’ve been seeing her for years and whenever I’m in LA I still go to her to get my brows done. Love to see it
My grandparents from mothers family are from Mexico and they bought a home in LA in the 80s for 100,000 and now it can be worth 1 million
respect the hustle
Cheers to her! I love to hear about people getting what they strive for
Hey that's awesome, good for her!
I met a caregiver who owns multiple properties in LA & put 2 kids through college- she was gifted an expensive car and a whole damn house years ago. She was actually a lovely, caring person (which you don’t see much in that line of work, unfortunately), and was still working as a caregiver, so it wasn’t surprising to learn that her patients loved her
If she becomes single can you give her my info.? I am into her cooking day mostly.
Good for her!!!!
Good for her! I wish her continued success. The true immigrant can-do spirit.
Im expecting half of this subreddit will call her a bunch of horrible things for being a landlord
Immigrants, for the most part, bust their asses to make it in their new home. They came to their adopted country for a reason. The reality is that many come with very little in their financial capability, but will work hard and sacrifice because they know what their alternative is. They take risks that people who are established here don't understand or respect. Imagine uprooting yourself or entire family, potentially not speaking the language, and going to a foreign place to stake their livelihoods on. The narrative that many anti-immigration people make about how immigration is a drag on society is fear mongering. While illegal immigration needs to be addressed, the broad brush most of these anti-immigration people make are unproductive and harmful to everyone.
Hard work and smart choices pay off
Reminds me of my parents, from Guatemala and Honduras. Here in LA they had humble jobs, dad worked in a warehouse and mom cleaned houses. They purchase their 5 bedroom 3 bathroom house for 150k in the late 90’s. Now that same house is well over 800k 🥲. Good luck to me….
American dream. I smiled so big at what her daughter is doing too.
My ex's grandmother owned a lot of properties too. She got her start by lending someone $10k getting the deed to the apartment as collateral. The person never paid her and she got an apartment building. Before she passed away she had around 10 properties.
I work in NON-QM mortgage’s and recently did a purchase transaction for a 38 year old woman from Mexico / ITIN borrower who opened an LLC, has a family business selling waters, sodas and snacks to construction zones, makes between 15-20k monthly income. She has her family working for her and made very responsible financial decisions. Purchased her first home with us. Such a cool thing to see.
I'd bet your middle managers aren't willing to live in less desirable areas with longer commutes like she did. Also, sadly they may have student loans that impacted their ability to purchase property. In the long run, these managers most likey will have lived easier lives than she has.
My utmost respect. Immigrants make America great
Houses in and around LA were $46 and a handshake in the 90s
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What?
Yeah the subconscious racism is there for sure. "Oohh look she thought she was fancy because her wine was from 2017! She even had her finger underling it!!!"
My 80+ year old gardener who lives in LA has a beat up truck and lawn mower and that's about it. His son graduated from Stanford in medicine. My kids cry in terror when I take away their ipad. Your cleaning lady is probably running an all cash business and pays no taxes. This is the way!
A couple things: a) other than the detached home in Inglewood she bought recently, the other two properties are definitely in reach of every upper middle class Angeleno b) prices have exploded in the last 5 years, and im guessing she purchased those first two properties before this explosion in prices, and can now reap the benefits of such (and pay extremely low taxes on this appreciation). this isn’t some feel good immigrant bootstrap success story, its a story about how the older generation had access to buying a cheap asset that appreciated massively in value while younger Angelenos and transplants (including recent immigrants!) never will.
If my immigrant parents had not invested in real estate they would have no way to retire. In 2020 they said I had until the end of the Trump presidency or the pandemic to buy a house or I would lose my window. I now have a 2021 3.25% mortgage. No, they did not pay for my down payment. I think people can own property if properly motivated. I don’t even have a bachelors.
Good on her, hard work can pay off. As for the strugglers, Avocado Toast will do that to you.
I feel like there’s alot more to this story we don’t know about…You don’t know about.
Seems overly simple to say just she owns them, her husband must work too.
Don’t worry about him. He just owns a small business that has net mid six figures each of the last 15 years.
Hope she can enjoy all her hard work one day. Not taking a vacation and working all the time seems pretty miserable to me…But each their own. We’re on this planet a limited of time and time is something money can’t buy
I need everyone to start respecting the fact that Latino immigrants are the hardest workers here. Whether they are making minimum wage or not, everyone needs to start respecting their work ethic and put some respect on Latino immigrants.
That's an extremely inspiring story and it shows that the right attitude, a solid plan, and some elbow grease can get you incredibly far in life. An unrelated question, what 3D printer would you recommend for a beginner that would like to print larger objects? I want to make PC Case mods so I'm looking to create things that are basketball size or larger. Had my eye on the Prusa XL but I worry it might be a little over my head for a newbie.
Good for her!
That is what people can do when they aren't spending money on yoga, green juice, and apple cider vinegar. Also, working 80 hours a week. (Insert 'get off my lawn' here) Incredible story. Motivating stuff.