ALMOST 15 YEARS AGO, identi- cal twin brothers Kelly and Chris Edwards found a historic house in Ra- leigh, North Carolina, that their real estate agent advised them not to buy. But they borrowed $5,000 from Dad and bought it anyway. The slanted floors were only the beginning of the repairs that kept them busy after work and on weekends. Six months later, they repaid their loan. Then they bought a second property—a four- plex, also in bad shape. Today they still own both rental properties. “There’s so much risk involved, but you just have to put one foot in the boat and one on the dock and shove off to get some momentum,” says Kel- ly Edwards, co-founder and managing principal of The Edwards Companies. In the beginning, the Edwardses only knew “how to swing a ham- mer” but didn’t mind getting their hands dirty and figured they could learn how to renovate on their own or hire contractors. Their school-of- hard-knocks education continued as they gained knowledge on selecting reliable contractors from a sea of not-so-great ones. Now they own four real-estate-related companies. EDUCATING THE EDWARDSES The brothers credit their MBAs and banking experience with giving them the expertise to analyze financial statements and make solid decisions. When one professor said employees can no longer depend on companies to provide until retirement, they vowed to be self-employed. After banking, they moved on to construc- tion jobs and contemplated when to take the leap. The economic down- turn forced the answer when Chris was laid off. “We went from thinking, ‘This is a great long-term buy’ as far our net worth is concerned, to ‘We need to make money now,’” says Chris, also co-founder and managing principal of The Edwards Companies.
Kelly and Chris Edwards started their investing journey in Raleigh, North Carolina.
“We knew that if we wanted to do this for a career, we had to diversify our portfolio.” The downturn was a challenging time to start a real estate investment business, not made any easier when the Edwardses saw employed friends wearing three-piece suits and driv- ing BMWs while the brothers drove beaters. So they stuck to their strate- gy, mainly buying properties to hold with a few flips thrown in, while “not participating in the downturn of the economy” because they didn’t plan to sell and they didn’t plan to give up. “We don’t want to sugarcoat it at all. It was very difficult. We worked our tails off,” says Chris. “There were days
where we were like, ‘Whoa, have we made a bad decision?’” They hadn’t. Both their net worth and income continued to grow. Today their four businesses employ 10 peo- ple and have contributed to restor- ing historic neighborhoods around Raleigh. As the brothers like to say, they like making “old stuff old again.” Also, a renovation television show highlighting their interest in historic homes is in the works.
FINDING AMENTOR Years ago, the brothers spotted a successful investor and sought him out. They approached him at a
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