Entrepreneurial at Home feat. Anthony Courter

Anthony Courter - Real estate 

Anthony Courter lives in Linden, TN with his wife and 11 unmarried children; his married son's family (wife and child) live not to far away. 

He is a successful rental owner and has taught many others what he's learned. 

His love for history took his family on a journey to Europe for the 70th anniversary of D-Day last year, and many other historical places across america. 

As a previous pastor his love for the ministry has taken him and his family to places like Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.  

I'm so glad he took the time for this interview I hope you learn much from his advice. 

Why this Business?

“I got into the rental business because I knew it was going to meet my goals for being with my kids, and giving me freedom from earning a wage by the hour, and giving me freedom to serve other people.  So that was the main reason, really the only reason I got into rental property.”

What made you start?

                “It was my goals, absolutely.”

What were your goals in starting this business?

                “My saying was I wanted to grow up with my children, which meant I wanted to be the main instructor in my children’s lives. So that meant I wanted to be around them every moment I could be, and so that’s 24 hours a day 7 days a week. So I was looking for something to have my children with me so I could teach them.

                I was looking for something that would give me freedom from just being a wage earner or just working by the hour. I wanted to be paid for my ideas and not just for my time. And another fraise I was using was a slave to money; I didn’t want to be a slave to money.

                The third one was I wanted to be able to serve other people and do it for free, and I wanted to at least do that for half a year. Give half my year away to other people. I realized that too many men were working for the hour and by the hour and because of that it gave them a different mentality. How they viewed money, what they were doing with it, because what they were doing was trading the most valuable thing that they had and it’s, there’s no way to put a value on it; they were trading their time, their health, their future and relationships with other people for a monetary amount, something that has a little bit of value. They were trading something that is basically priceless for twenty dollars an hour, fifteen dollars an hour or hundred dollars an hour or whatever it may be. But they’re still trading something that has a value beyond description for something so monetary as just a few dollars an hour. So I wanted to be paid for my ideas not my time.

                So those were my three things.”

What were some things that you did to get your business off the ground?

                “I was LUCKY. I “Labored Under Correct Knowledge.” I did lots and lots of homework, read lots of books. What I mean when I say “homework” and “I labored under correct knowledge” is, I read every book, real estate book I could find, I went to every library I could go to, and I would ask every investor I came in contact with; how’d they get started, what were they learning from the process, if they would do it again. So I had some people that told me that they didn’t want to do real estate ever again in their lives, I’d ask them why and I wouldn’t let them discourage me, I just wanted to find out why they discouraged it. I found guys that who were doing it was successful at it, so I asked them what they were doing that was good.

                I got newspapers and I tried to find rent values, prices of housing, and lots of things like that. I started going to different banks, trying to find out well what are the qualifications to borrow money. So that was the first thing that I did was I tried to education myself as much as possible. So there was about six months that I was really wanting to do something but all I could do was just, all I did was just homework, because I didn’t want to make a $40,000 or $50,000 mistake especially since I wasn’t making very much money. That was a lot of money at that point in my life and so I was very careful in how I was investing my time, and I wanted to make sure I was doing something with my time that would education myself.”

What are some lessons you've learned from doing this?

                “That if somebody sets their mind to it, anything’s achievable, without question. I was making $125.00 a week, didn't have any money saved, to speak of I didn't have any money saved back (I had $1,000.00 I had saved back from a job that I had had before), Michelle and I had two children at that point in our life, and I’d never bought a house. I had many people that were trying to discourage me, by just saying, get a factory job, stay there you’ll be happy, you’ll have two weeks of paid vacation and everything will be fine and hunky dory and you’ll get all these benefits. I would just say that if someone sets their mind to doing something and do the correct homework and don’t let their emotions drive them but letting wisdom and knowledge drive them I think they can do anything that they set their heart to.”

What kept you going?

                “The sheer fact that I knew I could do it and what the end goal was. Getting my three goals that I had, which were again; growing up with my kids, not being a slave to money, and giving my time away to other people for free.”

What are some things you want the readers to hear?

                “Become focused, focused stands for “following one course until successful.” Don’t dabble in 25 different things or three or four different things. When I was doing real estate I wasn’t doing anything but real estate. I exaggerate when I say that I was eat, drinking and sleeping real estate, but reality is past my scripture reading and time I was spending with my family and the job I was working, (I was working another job) I spent every moment I could think about real estate I was thinking about it, reading again and then trying to understand the principles that were there. Asking other men about the things I had learned.

                Something else is to just make sure that you’re applying yourself, and then just don’t be gathering knowledge but actually do something with it I could have done all that. I have a lot of people that they’ve asked me a lot of real estate questions, and they’ve asked me a lot of real estate questions, and they’ve asked me a lot of real estate questions. They have lots of knowledge, and they have lots of knowledge and they have lots of knowledge but they’ve never acted. So there’s a time when you need to do your research and you need to act upon it and not be driven by fear or by greed but by the wisdom of knowing that what you’re doing is a sound choice and it’s not, again, driven by your external emotions.”

How would you describe your success?

                “Well, I guess I could say after doing this since 1992, (so it’s been 23 years) I was able to quit my job after four years of doing this and so I started this back in 92, I started the factory job in 91 and with in September of 95 I quit my factory job.  And I was able to meet all the goals I desired, because I was now financially independent enough, I only had $1,000 a month coming in but my wife and I decided we were going to live off of that. Because we were able to stay within a budget and I was able to purchase the houses I did in those, basically about three and a half years, I was able to meet my goals and so I would say that I was very successful at meeting the goals that I desired to reach and it gave me the freedom to do many other things in life.”