With a history of ups and downs, Alvin Hope Johnson’s life has always revolved around real estate. Now, Alvin runs a real estate company, focusing on building new apartments and buying existing apartments. Where he started, however, was much different: as a painter’s helper. This gave him the opportunity to be introduced to real estate, literally from the inside out. After working as an independent painter, a general contractor for a commercial hotel, going broke, starting a construction company from scratch, and starting a few successful mortgage companies, Alvin made it through the 2008 financial crisis.
“To go from the lowest of lows to helping to fulfill others dreams of having a Nice place to live has been a real journey of tenacity and having a relentless pursuit of being the best version of myself that’s possible,” Alvin says.
At first, Alvin was motivated to start his business simply by his fundamental needs – he needed to eat, and this meant he had to work. Because of his volunteerism at other companies, he was naive enough to believe that he would pursue buying apartments with no money and little experience – and luckily, he was able to start finding success and overcome the large challenge of gaining access to capital, which is tricky for a new start up entrepreneur.
“The biggest obstacle today has been overcoming the lack of capital. We have had to find ways to be creative and partner with others that have the resources we need and provide them with something they didn’t have,” Alvin says.
The ease of sliding into the real estate industry came for Alvin due to his early experience in adjacent work. Through his early work in real estate, Alvin was able to solidify his mindset in order to bring success, both personal and professional.
“I have always been in real estate, since high school. So this was quite naturally a good fit for me. In my opinion, mindset is everything. If you believe you can achieve, then you are absolutely correct and if you believe you can’t, you’re absolutely correct,” Alvin outlines.
The real estate space is crowded. With his strong mindset, however, Alvin is able to further differentiate himself from the competition. He works toward being relentlessly creative, both in how he runs his business and approaches any problem or opportunity.
“I am working on being the best problem solver I can be, which will allow me to be paid very well because of the complex problems we are solving, and my solutions to address them,” Alvin says.
As a natural problem solver, it’s no surprise that Alvin has been able to find great professional and financial success.
“Success for me is having the ability to do what I want, when I want, with whomever I want, wherever I want. I’m fortunate that financial freedom comes with success for me. Having all of my bills on auto-pay forever, regardless of the amount is how financial freedom could come into reality,” Alvin says as he laughs.
In the new year, Alvin is looking forward to starting his 108 unit Class A project in May of 2021. This will be the first ground-up construction project he has tackled with his company, which is bound to bring about unique opportunities. In the next five years, Alvin is working towards 20,000 units in total.
Alvin can be found at his website online, as well as on Instagram.
