Alvin Johnson is a rags to riches story. Starting off small as a painter, Alvin worked his way up to the top when his boss went out of business. This was the beginning of an incredibly successful career for Alvin despite having to conquer obstacles to get there.
“I started in real estate as a painter’s helper. After a couple years of that, my boss went out of business. So, I began knocking on doors offering homeowners an opportunity for me to paint their home for $200.00 plus material. That door knocking led me to a General Contractor that gave me a commercial hotel job that literally made me a millionaire by 22, but by 24, we were broke,” Alvin recounts.
Unfortunately for Alvin, these few years were tough as he tried to figure out the best path going forward. He struggled to get back on his feet, but needed to find a way to pay rent and eat.
“A few years later, after starting my construction company back, I went on to start a couple of successful mortgage companies. I needed to eat,” Alvin states.
But Alvin did not let this difficult moment keep him down for long. After some hard years, he got back to his construction business which led him to a friend and mentor who gave him the opportunity he needed to get back on his feet and grow.
“I have always been in real estate, since high school. So this was quite naturally a good fit for me. After the real estate crisis in 2008, I had an opportunity to meet a guy who became a friend and mentor. He had an organization that had $1.5B in assets (16,000 apartments). After calling him for a year, he finally answered my call and gave me the opportunity to become a volunteer of the organization. Since then, me and a few of the associates from that Organization have built an entity that has a balance sheet of about $150M from zero dollars and zero experience. We now run a Real Estate development company, building new apartments and buying existing apartments,” Alvin explains.
What keeps Alvin on the cutting edge of the real estate world is his ability to be creative. After so many years of learning and struggling to get to the top, he is having fun and letting his creative juices flow as he succeeds in the real estate world.
“I am relentless in creativity. 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,” Alvin says.
With 2021 just beginning, Alvin has some great plans to keep himself going as the year continues. He is planning to start a large project later this year.
“We are starting our 108 unit Class A project in May of 2021, the first ground-up construction project we’ve done. We’re going towards 20,000 units in 5 years,” Alvin comments.
To find out more about Alvin, you can follow him on instagram here and check out his website here.