I’m downsizing. I cannot believe how upset people are that I’m selling my house. But let’s talk about this for a second because when I told this story in short form on Tik Tok and Instagram and some of the other places, people were going crazy with the comments of how they get it and how they wish they could do what they were doing. Most of the push back that’s coming from me talking about selling my house at 55 years old are the people that watched me go through the journey of building it and they fell in love with the story or it’s real estate agents who are saying don’t give up the value of a home investment. So here’s the deal with this. This is how I feel today.

I bought this house. I wasn’t actually even looking to buy. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had I was divorced. I had been divorced for a while. Uh my daughter was going into college and it was going to be her first year at college. And I helped my mom buy a a house down the street from my little brother, right across the street from my little brother. And this place happened to be coming up being built. And my little brother said, “Hey, Laura, I want you to come look at this new home development.” And I said, ‘N no, because they’re they’re actually in a small town right outside of where I live and I didn’t want to move to the small town and I I just I don’t know that I knew what I wanted yet really. I was I felt very safe in my little apartment. I was making great money. I was debtree, but I was about to take on massive college loans to put my daughter through college.

Now, that’s another thing I get push back on all the time. And listen, I am not going to apologize for wanting to help my kid. I’m not. And if you, you know, a lot of people will pass judgment on something before they understand the story behind it. And in our particular case, none of us went to college. None of us, you know, none of my generation went to college. My parents’ generation didn’t go to college. And I I wanted my kid to have whatever she wanted, whatever experience it was that she wanted to have. It’s not that I was going, “Oh, I think she’s going to get a better job if she goes to college.” I don’t even know that I believe that. But I got married at 17. My brother and sister got married as teenagers. We all started having babies and dropped out of high school. That’s just was what even even though I was a straight A student before for many many years before that, we weren’t presented with, hey, college is an opportunity. And so it was just always kind of known that we were going to get married early or, you know, we were going to have to go just find regular jobs or or whatever. I wanted to be a teacher when I was young, but then I ended up getting certified as a sign language interpreter for the deaf at 17. So, I kind of had this little path that I thought I was I was going to go follow.

Anyway, back to my daughter. I wound up getting married and starting a family and once you do that, you’re just kind of in that. And I wanted her to have choices and opportunities. And so, very, very young, she was I want to be an artist. And at first I thought she might grow out of that, you know, because a lot of kids want to be artists, but she never did. She carried a notebook with her everywhere she went, doodle pads, drawing, everything. It never stopped. And when she was in middle school, she’s like, “Mom, I want to go to this art school that’s in Southern California.” And when I looked it up, I was choking on it because the cost of this art school was as much as an Ivy League school. I was like, “Oh my gosh.”

Well, when I got divorced, she was starting her first year, about to start her first year of high school. And in order to get into this college, I had to actually move to a zip code because it was very hard to get into this magnet school that helped you get into that college. So, there was a lottery for it to get in. And the ways you get in is with your skill set, but then also living right within the zip code put you in like another lottery.

So, I moved, got her there. There was such a big deal to get her into college. Okay. And I’m this is leading up to the house I got her into she because she got into the college based on her skill set and her application and all the things that she had to work for and then plus being in that in that zip code. Well, now I knew, oh my gosh, I’m I’m going to put my kid through college. I got to figure out how to do this. When I first got divorced, I got nothing from the divorce. There wasn’t anything. It was kind of like you take your your car, you take your car, you take your real estate license, you take your real estate license. That was just kind of how that worked out. And I wasn’t doing real estate on my own. We were doing it as a team. So there was not there wasn’t a lot to carry over. But I still had some real estate referrals I was sending out here and there. And I was that was helping me live in the beginning.

I was job hunting. I was doing all the things. But I was like, “Oh my gosh, I got I got, you know, four years from the time she starts high school until she ends high school to get her into college.” So, I just put my head down and I focused and I created a a content creator business full-time, paid off all my debt. You know, it was really hard. I’m not going to lie. It was really, really hard at first. But then the money started coming in and I I started figuring this out and paid off all the debt, got my credit score up. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to fund college completely at $7,000 a month with her dorm and all that, but I knew that if I got my credit up and I was able to make the payments, which were going to be very expensive on the college loans, then I would be able to at least help her get there.

And all I was focused on was let me get her into the first year. You know, if you know, you know. So, by the end of that time frame, you know, I’m still living in that apartment. I’ve she’s got been accepted and I know that I’m going to have to get her that first loan that first loan in um I think we had to apply in June or July to get to get her in. So that’s what I knew. And suddenly I’m helping my mom buy a house across the street from my little brother. So that took a lot of my cash. Um I I cashed in some stocks. Again, my business was doing well. I had built it up to six figures, but I still that buying this house, you know, it was it was, you know, I probably had to put in like 20 grand worth of um deposits. I put the mortgage in my name. So, I didn’t think I was going to buy a house. I just helped my mom get a house, you know. So, my little brother and I had to apply for college own. My little brother said, “Hey, come look at this development.” I’m like, “I’m not moving there. It’s not going to happen.” I walked into this house and I just fell madly in love with the house and I knew it was my house. I just knew it was it was actually that kitchen. This whole open plan when I got down the hallway just made me totally fall in love with this house.

And so I uh we called the lender right then and they’re like um my little brother’s talking to the lender because he’s a real estate agent too and he’s like hey is is there any chance Lori’s going to be able to buy you know could buy both of these houses on her income and we also got to get her kid into college. Like I I was taking on way more way more than anybody really understands at that time. Everybody just sees me as successful and then they see how much money I I mean I’m making a lot more now, but five years ago they saw that I was making six figures and for some reason people think six figures is like unlimited income. It’s just like totally disposable income and it’s it’s really not like that, you know. So anyway, I I um I my the lender said she actually does qualify based on the Well, now I got on the phone. She’s like, Laura, you you qualify based on the income, but it’s going to be really really tight for you to get that first college loan and your mom’s house, which we could show like a rent back and buy this other new house, and it’s it’s you you’re not going to be able to breathe. Like, you can’t spend a dime. You your income can’t drop.

Now, remember, I’m a content creator. I’m a full-time content creator. Anybody who knows knows what that means. like like in most cases you have no idea. You don’t know when a video is going to take off. You don’t necessarily know when your Pinterest pin’s going to rank or your blog’s going to and your you know you got to convert and convert and convert and convert and convert and create and convert create and convert. You know, it’s like this whole cycle.

But I had been doing it for 5 years and I had built it up to the point and by this time I’m not even really doing much real estate anymore. Um I still have a real estate license but I had gotten so so so into this content creator business that I wasn’t really actively promoting that. But I qualified. She said, “You just got to put your head down.” So, man, did I I I I mean, I just I did nothing. I did nothing else but work, work, work, work, work, work, work. Which is really what I’ve been doing the past 5 years anyway. So, it wasn’t that different. But, man, it was stressful. And this was during the lockdowns. And that had some some pros and cons to it in in there were there were certain ways I benefited from it. There were certain day certain ways it it made it harder, but for me it just everybody was at home and that allowed me to sell more webinars and and there were some things in there that that business-wise I was able to do better during that time span because so many people were at home and and they needed these other things to do and real estate actually went up and so I started doing a little more real estate sales.

So all in all by the end of that time frame I was able to get her in college. I closed on my mom’s house in February. I got her loan. I closed on my house in July and I got her first loan for the first year in July also. And I didn’t even know how I was going to pay for everything. My goodness. I mean, I knew my income qualified, but I was like, I’m not going to be able to breathe. I I don’t I this is going to be crazy. And it was very stressful. But but I I bet on myself and I had enough faith in myself that I was going to be able to do it. And and I didn’t even there was no plan B. Like this is happening. I’m going to do this.

And so got the house and then I spared no expense creditwise on putting the house together. Upgraded flooring, the new paint, the the crown molding, the upgraded fixtures. I mean, upgrade upgrade up. The the plantation shutters that were 10 grand. The the remote control screen that protects the I just I just the landscaping. Oh my gosh. It was just one thing and one thing and one thing and one thing. That is what nobody really tells you when you’re buying a house is that it is rarely just the cost of the house and especially when you’re buying new um or or you’re fixing stuff. You’re going to have all these things that you want to do. And I built a pool like a crazy woman which worked out wonderfully for me. But I don’t know how I thought I was going to do all that. I I did but I I mean talk about blind faith. So I put in a pool. pool cost me 90 grand to put in this pool. So then I’ve got $1,000 a month pool payments. Now what happened during this time?

Now remember when I bought this house, I was 50. I’m 55 now. When I when I bought this house as a single woman and did all of this, I wasn’t I will I will say I did have some concerns about maintenance, but I I was thinking at the time, I’ll just hire a guy. I’ll just hire a guy. like I’ll just hire somebody. Forgetting how much I didn’t want to hire somebody. I’ve I’ve had my whole life I’ve had employees. I’ve had big payrolls. I’ve had to depend on other people to show up and do the things. And I’m forgetting how much I didn’t like that. How much I love just doing working by myself and doing my own thing. And you know, I went from an entrepreneur to a soloreneur because of those reasons. And here I am not thinking about how much of a pain point that would end up being for me.

So I get in the house. I got to hire a landscaper guy. I got to hire a pool guy. I got to hire a a handyman. I mean, I don’t even know how to put all this stuff up by myself. I’ve got to hire and I didn’t want to learn it either. I have no passion to learn home DIY and and and any of that. I just don’t.

Um, so right off the bat I’ve got five, six, seven like contractors and handymans and and pool guys and all this stuff that I got to maintain and manage and and and I don’t know what I don’t know, you know, like I’m finding as I’m doing things that, oh, I probably shouldn’t have done it that way. I shouldn’t have done it that way. Like for example, I put in two trees in my sideyard and now they’re blocking the RV parking. Like the house came with RV parking just because I didn’t want to use the RV parking. Now I have a lemon tree and a and a giant other shade tree in the RV parking that I really wish I could just wouldn’t have put there and paved it for additional parking. I think now it would even have it would help the house more. I mean, somebody else could do it, but you know what I’m talking about when you actually go to sell the house. Um those types of things. The landscaping died the first year.

We had the one of the hottest summers we’ve ever had. I’m in the desert in the Vegas area and my trees, my $10,000, $15,000 worth of landscaping all died. First it was this palm and then it was that palm and then it was the trees behind. They just the way the sun bakes my backyard, which is great for the pool, not great for landscaping. The landscaping guy could have said those, you know, we real hot summer, the way your your backyard the sun hits it, those aren’t going to survive. But did he know? You know, like that kind those types of things. And this was inside the house and outside the house that all of these things were were coming up.

So, while I never had a problem making house payments or pool payments or any of that, my my income went up and up and up, it being in this house has fostered that my my creativity and my business side of me. And that has been a beautiful thing. just be being able to be alone and quiet and and and all of that. But what I have found now 5 years down the road is that I don’t want the maintenance anymore. And at, you know, 55, I’m not getting any younger. So that that’s just going to be more and more the case. I’m not getting married. I’m not moving somebody into this h into my house. So I got to keep hiring a guy and a guy and a guy. Guess what? They’re not dependable.

they, you know, the prices are constantly going up, but the services aren’t, you know, especially after they get comfortable and, you know, or they’ll leave and you got to hire a new one. And then I just find myself not wanting to get the the yard maintained. I don’t really have a yard, but the trees around the pool and such. And now there’s wild ass mushrooms growing in my backyard that are I I don’t know what they are. and and at one time I was feeding the birds and all a sudden I saw saw cre uh let’s just say there’s been a lot of creatures in the backyard showing up randomly last season especially and I don’t know if it was the heat or what it was and you know where all the desert creatures and and I I I even saw like a road runner scan my wall which is hilarious and then they kept getting bigger and bigger then I’ve got a hawk and I’ve got a whatever I’m like I’m going to have coyotes in my backyard next it was just a weird bats on my front window sill Again, this is normal desert stuff. This is not unusual desert stuff, but it was creeping me out as a single woman.

And I’m I’m just it was been getting more and more unsettling every year. And then my hot water heater, even though it was under warranty, it ran exploded and ran all over my garage. And then my air conditioner compressor wasn’t working. So, I had to bring somebody again under warranty, thank goodness. But they had to fix that. You know, houses are being, you know, built cheaper and cheaper these days. So you you find things I I had drywall cracking in in the first year. So I had to have the builder come out and fix the drywall as again normal as the house was settling and some of these kinds of things.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with my house. My my house is pretty wonderful and only 5 years old and there’s so many good things about it. that this is normal stuff that most people, you know, either fix it, women that like to fix stuff or women that like to hire leverage and don’t have any problem with that or men women that are married. It’s just part of the process. But as me, a single woman who doesn’t like to do all that stuff and doesn’t want to manage people, I finally woke up one day and said, “I don’t want this anymore.”

That’s one. Two, I don’t want to live in the desert anymore. been here all my life. I lived in California for one year when I was 17. I lived in Ohio for one year when I was 14. And other than that, I’ve been in Vegas forever. So, as I’m getting older, I’m finding I I don’t do the heat as well. It’s funny because some days I’m even like it’s too hot to go in the pool because it’s 111 degrees and the UV rays are 10 and I’m like h I don’t I don’t want to lather myself up in sunscreen with all the chemicals and I also don’t want to be out there without the chemicals. So it’s just it’s just gotten to be now where like I don’t even have a tan this year. I haven’t even really taken advantage of my expensive pool this year. So all of those signs were telling me like it’s time.

So then why sell instead of rent is what a lot of people are asking me. Because if I put a renter in here, it’s still the maintenance. If I put a renter in here, now I have somebody else that I’m counting on that that there’s an a two-way obligation that I don’t want. I don’t I don’t want it. I don’t want to answer to somebody. I don’t want to be responsible for somebody if I don’t want them to be responsible to me. Um I I don’t like it. I I just I want to be completely free.

So what I did is I sat down and I did all these numbers on what if I took the same amount of money and put it in investments because I love to invest and I’ve gotten really passionate about it and I’ve done well. Uh it was it was my growth in stocks while I was in that little divorce apartment that actually built up to $50,000. Not in a retirement, but something I was playing with, just dabbling with. And I built it up to 50,000 and that’s what allowed me to have the cash to buy this house and my mom’s house and get my daughter moved that first year.

Um so, and then so there’s all those reasons. Four, the fourth reason is I still have the college debt. So even though you guys watch my channel, some of you, and you go, “Oh my gosh, she just said she’s on track to make $500,000 this year. She this, that, this, that, and the other.” My daughter’s college loans were about 200 $250,000. Now, again, some of you guys would say that’s insane, but for me, it was the right choice. And now she works for Paramont. She’s doing all the things that she wants. She’s, you know, got all of her friends. She she got independence to go get her own apartment. All the things that we wanted for her as that she wanted for herself and I wanted her to have as a mother. I didn’t have any specific wants for her other than to have great experiences. But that goal of of being able to help her follow her dreams and do what she want paid off. It did.

Um so it was worth it for me and it was I never will regret it. And you know, did that teach her responsibility to get her own loans and pay? No. But did she run off and get married at 17 and have a baby? She didn’t have a choice like I did. No. You know, it was right for us. That’s that’s what I’ll say. And you know, sometimes I find myself apologizing for for doing the thing things that I’ve decided to do. And I’m like, this is my life and this is her life and this is this this is this was right for us. This was right for us.

A lot of people will go, “Well, you’re already you’re already too old to start investing.” I don’t I don’t It’s not true. It’s not true. Am I going to have a nest egg, a guaranteed retirement sitting there? No. But how many people actually do? You know, how many people started saving when they were 20 years old and and built up that not, you know, it’s a it’s a small smaller number than you might think. How many people actually bought their house and they’re still in the same house that they bought and raised their kids in and now their house is paid off and they have something to live off of? Not that many.

So, I am already where I am, you know. I already my husband and I when we were together, we made good money and I wish we would have made some different financial decisions. I’m not going to sugarcoat that. Um, you know, we we were raising our children. We had four between the two of us and we were together for 25 years and we lived a big life and we took a lot of vacations. We we had a lot of really great experiences and we helped our kids in the ways we could but we also h you know spent money that we that could have gone into investments that that would have been better. You know we didn’t know I did I’m going to take say for me I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Got married at 21.

Just didn’t know what I didn’t know. Didn’t have great money examples. So, while I’ve always been kickass good at making money, I didn’t always know the best ways to manage the money, what to do with it. Okay, anybody who knows me, who’s watched me grow in my life, has said they would refer to me as very successful, but you know, investment wise, I missed the boat.

Okay, so yeah, it but this house doesn’t cover that either because I just bought it five years ago. It doesn’t h it. I’m so fortunate and and I feel like this is a God thing. It’s a universe thing. I am so fortunate that five years paid for it went up $300,000 in equity in five years. Oh my gosh. $300,000 in equity in five years. Now, is that going to keep doing that? I don’t think so. You know, I’m in the real estate industry. I’m looking at the market. Most of the of the cheaper houses didn’t grow like that. I’m in the higher price range that did grow like that. I feel like I’ve got this beautiful little pocket to take advantage of an opportunity.

Okay, I did get a really low interest rate. I am one of the ones that got very lucky. Um, and that’s the only reason I was able to buy this house was because of the low interest rate after the lockdowns. And I feel like that was a universal God thing because look what’s happening now. So beca because I was able to buy this house, I was able to keep my payments low. I was able to afford it and get my mom in a house at the same time across the street from my brother and get my kid in college. And now five years later, because I had that advantage, I now have $300,000 in equity that I wouldn’t have had if I was still sitting in an apartment that I can now sell the house and pay off my daughter’s college loans.

Like, it feels like a God thing. It feels like a universal delivery of here’s this gift. Not to mention, I got to live in this beautiful house and create and build and grow and and become all the things I needed to figure out how to become as an empty neester and divorced woman and see and all the things that I now have. I almost want to cry. I’m so grateful. I’m so grateful. So blessed. I worked my ass off for it.

But I do know I call it cocreating, you know. I do know that there is there’s a higher power working. There’s a there’s me as a future self. There’s a God. There’s a universe. There’s an energy. money thing. I’m a woo woo girl. I believe in all of it. And so, could I hold the house and put a renter in here? Yes. That doesn’t satisfy my goals. It doesn’t pay off the debt.

Now, the debt’s only going to it’ll be all paid off in five years anyway because I didn’t take long-term loans. I took short-term loans to pay off more aggressively so that I wouldn’t be stuck with it for the rest of my life. But, that would be five more years in here paying off those all and the interest rates on those. And um I want to be free. I just want to be free.

What I want to do is I want to be able to go park myself in the most beautiful environment um that is still near family where I live like I’m on vacation for a year. And for me that is Southern California, not with a permanent move. I still have a business in Vegas. I actually still have my my mom’s property still in my name here in Vegas. I still have family here. So, I’ll still have, you know, a foot in here and a foot in there, you know, at going back and forth doing different things, but I want to have a place to park myself over there to try it out.

And then after that, it so where I’m going, my my I’m closer to my daughter. She lives in LA and she’s only now she’ll be 45 minutes from me. And my younger brother, I mean, my older brother, my younger brother lives here. My older brother lives 15 will live 15 20 minutes from me. he’s at a different beach town that I’m going to.

And so I’ll have I’ll have um one north and one south of me that I can go to. I mean, being closer to my kid is everything, right? And my older brother and I love to hang out. We love to go to farmers markets. We love to go dine on patios. I you know, I I I need that. I need that. I need that connection. He needs that connection. So, it makes sense for me to follow those connections.

You know, at the same time, I’m leaving here um my brother with my mom. So, you know, my little brother, my mom, they live across the street from each other. My little brother can help my mom. And um it’s crazy cuz I actually even though I only live half a mile, I don’t see them that often. I see them more when we go on vacation.

So, I want to continue that. I want to continue the vacations and the and the quality of life with everybody. and and it just we don’t have to be neighbors and we don’t hang out all the time and see each other all the time. So, for me, this all just lines up and it just makes sense.

I don’t really ever want to buy a house again. Um, unless I I I don’t know why what the reasons would be, but as a single woman, I won’t do it again. Would I ever buy a condo or a town like a like a little condo? Possibly. that doesn’t require a lot of maintenance, that would be easy, that doesn’t have yards, that doesn’t have landscaping, that doesn’t have all that. Possibly, possibly that’s something I might do, but I just don’t want to be a own a house like this and have to take care of it all again. And I want to just go be free.

And, you know, maybe that means I go on a cruise for a year. Maybe that means I do visit other countries. Maybe that means I go, you know, to California for a year and then or six months a year, whatever it is. And then I go to North Carolina and then I go to wherever and I’m I’m I’m playing, you know, I’ve got this massive desire to go pursue my genealogy, my family roots. I’m the family historian and I’ve got 26,000 people in my family tree. Maybe I go to Salem for three months or six months or a year and go sit in those li family libraries and go trace all the family history and and build like you can tell how much I want this because I get so emotional talking about it.

I don’t want to be chained to any one place. This is not Lori is moving to California. This is I’m going to go live now and it’s time. I’ve got a stable business. I’ve got I I’ll be debt free and just me and my cats.

That’s the only part to figure out is the cats. They’re going with me and um and that’s all that’s what I know for now. So, I have picked the place. It’s beautiful. It’s in Newport Beach and it’s absolutely everything I wanted it to be.

And I’m going to pay an arm and a leg to live there for a year. Debtree, like I’m on vacation. total resort, six pools, restaurant on the property, pool service, uh massage room, state-of-the-art, fitness center, a million workspaces to go work and create and film and play.

And I’m so happy with this decision. So, don’t be sad for me. Don’t think I’m crazy to sell my house. If you understand the story, you understand the goal. Anyway, you guys seem to like these types of videos. YouTube told me to make more of them. I’m Lori Balon. Thank you for being here and I’ll talk to you later. Bye.