Casey Serin's Story - An American Dream - Part 1

Casey Serin is facing a lot of pressure these days. With $2.2 million in mortgage debt and another $144,000 in credit card debt, the 24-year old California man is seeing his American dream turn into a nightmare. Mortgage lenders are preparing to foreclose on five different properties in four different States. He’s behind on his credit card payments and he doesn’t have a job.

It wasn’t always this way for Serin. In fact, this is his first big setback in life. Serin isn’t giving up though. He hopes to get through this situation without losing his homes or declaring bankruptcy and most surprisingly he wants to continue investing in real estate.

I’ve spoken with Casey over the phone over the past couple weeks asking questions about his situation and his plans for the future. Over the next week, I’ll be sharing what was discussed in a series of posts.

In this section of the story we’ll look at how Casey got started in the real estate business, what his background is and how he got on the path to purchase eight homes in three months with no money down.

Casey Serin came to America from Uzbekistan with his family in 1994. Casey is the oldest child in his family, with two brothers and a sister. His drive to make the most of the “American Dream” led him to become an entrepreneur. Soon after arriving in the United States, Casey taught himself computers and web design. He pored over books on business opportunities and positive thinking. After all his research, real estate kept beckoning. Casey explained, “I kept coming to real estate because, if you look around, most of the people that are really successful either became successful directly through real estate or indirectly. The other route is they were a business owner and then they still invested in real estate. So real estate has always been a component of wealth creation and I was interested in it.”

He didn’t pursue real estate as a career at first though. One college course is the extent of his formal post-secondary education. Instead, Casey took a full-time job in the computer industry. After living in several apartments, he bought his first home three years ago, a small condo purchased with an FHA loan. With his father’s help, Casey fixed up the unit, painted, installed new carpet and replaced the old appliances. After a year of living in the condo, he sold it and made some money. Casey elaborated, “That was my first experience and I ended up selling that condo a year later for a net gain of about thirty thousand dollars. I was pretty excited to say the least. That was how much I was making at my full-time job for the whole year.”

That transaction hooked him on real estate. However, he pursued a business in web design first. Just before selling the condo, he had quit his job to become a full time web designer and moved back in with his parents to regroup. The web design business didn’t work out for Casey and he returned to regular employment. During that period of his life, he married and contemplated real estate investing further.

Determined to create a passive income utilizing real estate, Casey read voraciously and attended real estate seminars by Russ Whitney. He also purchased No Down Payment from Carleton Sheets. Armed with additional knowledge and inspired by the success of his first real estate deal, by the end of 2005, Casey was ready to re-enter the California real estate market.

to be continued...

Tomorrow: Part 2, A real estate spending spree.

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