What began as a 10 week adventure living a spartan existence in the mountains of Toluca, Mexico turned into an obsession with immersion into foreign cultures, a thirst for living situations that helped me grow and a need to see the world.

Despite the fact that I didn’t own a passport until 2005, since then I’ve spent more than a decade living, working and traveling outside of the US.  My first trip to Toluca was meant to be a mere adventure with two friends in search of becoming world caliber distance runners.  I was a 3-time All American track and field athlete in search of where my legs might take me if I ran 2 hours a day at 8500 feet altitude with two of my best friends.  The result?  Two Olympic teams and athletics stardom.  The catch is that those were the accomplishments of one of my two roommates, not me!  Still, I think that I was the victor on that adventure.  I left with a newfound world view and a wanderlust that left me feeling like I was just about to start experiencing life.  That’s where my story began.

After a few years figuring out how to live abroad (gainfully) and couple my interest in helping young people, I finally settled into a career as an international School Counselor.  Since my stint in Mexico, I’ve lived in Argentina, Qatar and Spain.  Between all four countries I have split a 96-dollar-a-month rent with two other people, lived in a 3500 square foot villa on a guarded compound, a youth hostel, my parents house, a 2000 dollar a month apartment and a building affectionately referred to as ‘The Bin’.  Whether it’s been these experiences or an innate interest, each year has enhanced my desire to immerse myself into real estate.

Over the past three years I’ve delved into real estate investing in a big way.  I’ve invested in commercial development, been bamboozled by foolishly investing with a high school classmate early in my real estate journey when I was desperate to get started and finally, I’ve found a niche and developed a process for finding undervalued properties, renovating them and flipping or renting them for a profit…all from half-way across the world.

I intend for this blog to be place where I can share the challenges of living as an expat and trying to invest in real estate both in the US and abroad.  I’ll share lessons learned as well as some observations I’ve made through my failures and successes with real estate investing, financial planning and life’s big decisions.  Please join me in the conversation on real estate without boundaries.