Meet America’s Youngest Landlord
Here’s a nice feel-good story about a financially-savvy teenager. 14-year-old Willow Tufano may be America’s youngest landlord. She bought a house in a short sale in Port Charlotte, Florida for $12,000. The 3-bedroom house is now rented out for $700 a month! (The house was on the market for $100,000 at the peak of housing bubble.)
More details – She put down $6,000 cash, her mom (a real estate agent) put down $6,000. She earned her share of the cash primarily from offering a service where she clears out foreclosed houses on behalf of the new investors. She then picks through the stuff and resells any goods or appliances that she can. She also spends her weekends looking for deals from garage sales and resells them for a profit on Craigslist.
I have to wonder about the whole nature vs. nuture thing about kids like this. Certainly having a real estate agent for a mother helped in this example, but so I doubt that in itself is enough. In my idle daydreams, I think it would be cool to start some sort of farmer’s market stand with my kids to show them some business basics. From the Ellen Show:
More: DailyMail, Inside Edition
By Jonathan Ping | Entrepreneurial | 9/13/12, 3:04am
September 13th, 2012 at 5:42 am
I love these kids who think different and take the leap to make things different.. She is really a go-getter…
Good for her..
September 13th, 2012 at 6:18 am
Wow, good for her. That is a great ROI. Would have been a better ROI if her mother had let her use some leverage by getting a bank loan. Nevertheless, good for her.
September 13th, 2012 at 7:17 am
In theory sounds like a good property. I always get suspicious when someone claims they just found a 70% yield rental property though. Something’s very weird about that deal.
September 13th, 2012 at 7:18 am
Very cool. A great example of ingenuity and how creative entrepreneurs can profit even from disasters.
September 13th, 2012 at 9:46 am
Makes her money clearing out foreclosed houses and reselling anything with value. Very feel-good indeed. In all seriousness though, I’m also very suspicious about these types of stories. The bank let a property go for $12,000.00 when the monthly rental alone is $700.00?
September 13th, 2012 at 12:59 pm
So Ellen just gave her a $10,000 gift card and a $2,000 dryer. That girl should just sell both of those and go buy another house!!
September 13th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
If you use Zillow and poke around Port Charlotte, FL, you can find lots of houses for sale around $50,000 and a LOT of foreclosures. If the house was truly a dump or squatter house, the number is not unfathomable. It might be that finding a stable $700 a month rent is the tougher part!
@Ryan C – Exactly what I was thinking! Why put such a nice dryer in a rental unit.
September 13th, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Here’s a pending unit listed for $17,000 in Port Charlotte for 2bed/1bath.
http://www.zillow.com/homedeta.....6633_zpid/
September 13th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Great story. For those with suspicions, you have to remember what wasn’t mentioned is the cost of the repairs she made to the property. That would decrease her ROI. However, with experience clearing out foreclosed homes i bet she was thrifty in her repairs and is still making a killing (relatively speaking). Good for her.
September 13th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
For you guys saying it’s too good to be true on buying a property for $12000 and renting it out for $700, let me tell you about one of my properties:
I bought at $25K and figured I could rent at $300-$400/month. Instead, I went section 8 and got $900/month from the government and the girl renting gave me an extra $100/month on top of that.
Before I invested, I went on the internet seeking others’ opinions. Lots of long diatribes why it would be foolish to buy the property. Luckily I went with my instincts and I’ve since long sold that property and used it to turn a considerable sum into a ROTH.
This can be done.
September 13th, 2012 at 8:17 pm
Mike Crosby, why would you sell it if it was getting you $1K a month??
September 13th, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Maybe that was before the market crash…
September 14th, 2012 at 10:23 am
RE: Mike Crosby’s post
I wouldnt sell it even if it went up to $100K in value! (unlikely), because thats still more than 10% returns.
September 15th, 2012 at 11:12 am
@xmasy … the 10% return is irrelevant at that point
the market value is the market value .. if Mike thought the market topped out for his rental, its smart to get out now if you see a similar home(s) available again
i would keep it just to keep it, however if money is tight its smart to get out and regroup .. take ur gains and re-invest
the % is irrelevant, total profit $$ is the goal
September 15th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
awesome story! Check out lemonadeday.org for when the baby grows up. Their organization encourages child entrepreneurism.
September 17th, 2012 at 11:41 am
Wow! What an inspirational story!
September 24th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
You know what I keep wondering? How is the property titled? Clearly, the girl can’t own it because she’s not old enough and wouldn’t have the capacity to own real property. So, maybe her mom owns it? So, maybe there was a gift from daughter to mom of the money to buy the property and later mom will have to gift it back to the daughter? Hard to say.