About Me

I am originally from New York and moved to Atlanta in 1992 before moving to the gorgeous Emerald Coast (Panhandle) of Florida in 2004. After graduating college and working in Manhattan for several years, I knew that was not where I wanted to be for long. At the time, I was living in Queens NY and commuting into the city. Talk about stressful and living your life on a time schedule!

Moving to Atlanta was a culture shock. As the saying goes “You can take the girl out of New York, but you can’t take the New York out of the girl.” In 1992 Atlanta was not the size it is today. Everyone was so nice and so laid back. That was very different than what I was used to in New York City. I didn’t know if I would like Atlanta and it turned out to be such a wonderful place to live. I had been in Advertising and Publishing since graduating college in 1987 and took a sales job selling to companies that needed printed catalogs. (The company I was selling for designed and printed catalogs).

As the years passed, I had different sales jobs and yet never felt like I could get ahead financially. I did well and made good money, and yet something was missing. The last job I had in Atlanta, I sold printing to architects and engineers. After giving them 6 1/2 years, being the top sales person, winning a sales contest, and landing Chick-fil-A as an account (we also did color printing), the Vice President fired me. Yes, you heard that right. You see, I did not respect the man, and never “brown-nossed” him and he had it out for me for years. While I should have left the company 3 years prior, we all seem to get “comfortable” with the company we work for and what we do. Again, I was making good money and yet I was so tired of working for someone else. This event turned out to be the best thing that happened.

After doing some soul searching, I knew I did not want to go back to Corporate America. I just wanted to find something that I would enjoy. My parents always said “do what you love and the money will come”. Since my background was so strong in publishing, I bought into a territory that published a coupon magazine. After months of cold calling, feeling burnt out and not making any money, I decided to join my husband in real estate full-time (He had been managing all of our properties full-time).

My husband and I got into real estate investing in 2002. A friend of ours, whom we met in another business opportunity, became one of our partners, along with another guy we met at a seminar. We were buying, selling and holding rental properties. The uglier the house, the cheaper we could buy it. We did minor and major renovations, flipped homes to other investors for a fee, sold homes on a lease/option, or just rented them long-term. That was our first “introduction” to passive income. Once you get a taste of passive income, it’s hard to look back.

In 2004 we moved to the Florida Panhandle for real estate. I got my Real Estate License in August of that year, and then in September hurricane Ivan hit! We were living in Pensacola at the time and thankfully the home we were renting was not damaged. Growing up in the North, we didn’t have hurricanes! In October of 2004 I moved my license to a company in Destin and started commuting 2-3 times per week. It was over an hour each way, and I knew come tourist season it would take me twice as long. So, in March of 2005 we purchased a town home just east of Destin.

I absolutely love Real Estate. Every day is different. I have the best of both worlds…I have an office to go to and I am self-employed. No boss, no one telling me what to do, when to do it, how to do it and how much money I will earn. I finally found a job where the harder I work, the more I earn. And I earn what I am worth! Here’s the catch, it is still transactional. I am not making money while I sleep, which is passive income. I want to wake up in the morning and have more money in my bank account than I did when I went to sleep.

My husband is an incredible photograper, and I am a Realtor. We also have a couple of other businesses that we are building to create passive income. They take time to grow and along the way we are meeting incredible people, making great friends, making money and best of all, having a lot of fun.

Debbie James

Energy Flows Where Attention Goes