‘I turned my real estate side hustle into $3 million fortune'

News.com.au

03-06-2025

A US migrant has revealed how she turned her real estate side hustle into a multimillion-dollar fortune.
Connie Bai, an immigrant from China, bought her first home in California's San Francisco Bay Area in 2011.
Nearly 15 years later, the software program manager's dream of being a homeowner has blossomed into a burgeoning real estate portfolio.
Ms Bai now owns three properties, including her primary residence in one of the nation's priciest real estate markets and a rental home, earning her $US2.4 million ($A3.7 million) in equity alone.
'I didn't know the market was low,' Ms Bai told Realtor, looking back on her first foray into real estate.
'I just felt that I wanted to buy a home. I felt the need.'
Ms Bai, who briefly worked for Move, Inc., the parent company of Realtor in 2017, said that through her real estate 'side gig,' she has not only cobbled together a small fortune, but also discovered a passion for housing investments.
Last year, she obtained her real estate license to become an agent, and she is now preparing to take the broker exam.
'I want to help real estate investors to better invest, invest wisely,' explained Ms Bai.
'I want to help them with my knowledge and experience.'
First-time homeowner
Ms Bai arrived in the Bay Area from China in 2001 armed with a law degree and a drive to succeed.
She pointed out that her mother always taught her to be independent and ambitious — and she took those lessons to heart.
'I want to be successful financially, and I like money,' she readily admitted. 'So I am very highly self-motivated.'
In the years that followed, Ms Bai earned a master's degree in computer science from California State University–East Bay, followed by a law degree from the University of California–Berkeley School of Law.
By 2009, Ms Bai had been working in tech in Silicon Valley for several years when she decided to launch her own start-up, Yeepet, which she described as a social media network and e-commerce platform for pet lovers.
Although her online venture did not survive in the long run, Ms Bai said luck was on her side, because Yeepet generated enough profit to allow her to buy her first home: a four-bedroom, two-bathroom property in San Jose, California, which she snapped up for $US675,000.
'I wanted to own a home and I wanted to have a permanent address,' she said. 'That was the initial motivation.'
What Ms Bai did not know at the time was that she was sitting on a gold mine.
As Silicon Valley's tech industry exploded, San Jose's housing market has soared.
'I just kept monitoring the market value of the property,' Ms Bai said. 'Every year, it just kept going up.'
As of April, San Jose had the highest median list price in the US, at $US1,399,000 ($A2,164,000), up more than 24 per cent from six years ago, according to the latest Realtor.com Monthly Housing Trends Report.
That was welcome news for Ms Bai, whose 1964-built home was now worth roughly $US2.2 million ($A3.4 million).
Expanding the real estate portfolio
But the ambitious tech entrepreneur was not done with her money-making hobby.
In December 2019, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the world into a state of turmoil, Ms Bai said she observed that the interest rates were low.
Although she was not on the market for a second home, she saw an opportunity and again took a swing, closing on a sleek property with a pool in California's Central Valley.
Ms Bai said she paid $US567,000, which was more than $US100,000 below the original asking price.
Fast-forward to 2025, and that second property, which the homeowner has been using as her vacation retreat, is now valued at around $US800,000 ($A1.2 million).
In 2021, at the height of the pandemic, Ms Bai bought a four-bedroom home in the town of Tracy, California, about 20 minutes from the Bay Area, for $US605,000.
While the appreciation rate of her third property has been lower than the first two — a Realtor.com estimate shows that the home is currently worth $US649,000 ($A1 million) — Ms Bai said she has been making a handsome profit by renting it out.
Ms Bai explained that while buying real estate is never an easy decision, she approaches each closing with confidence informed by her awareness that land in the Bay Area is scarce, which means that its value is bound to go up in the long run.
'So every time I jump into a single-family home, I know I am going to sit on the pile of cash sooner or later,' she added. 'And that's been proven as a fact.'
Learning from her mistakes
It has not been all smooth sailing for Ms Bai in her real estate journey.
Speaking to Realtor, she said that she had made 'a bunch of mistakes' as a novice investor.
Her first faux pas was buying a rental home for more than $US500,000 ($A773,000), instead of opting for something cheaper.
Ms Bai's second misstep was to splurge on $US50,000 ($A77,000) worth of renovations to the home — even though she knew she was planning to lease it out.
'I tried to treat it as if it was my own home where I would live,' she said, 'but I shouldn't have done it'.
Ms Bai's third error was not doing enough homework about the city where she was looking to buy property.
She said she learned only after the fact that Tracy, California, does not allow Airbnb-style short-term rentals — something she wished she had known in advance.
'So my advice to those real estate investors like me would be, do your market research, really be aware of yourself,' Ms Bai urged.
'You think you're experienced. Yes, you may be experienced as a homeowner, but you may not be experienced enough as a real estate investor.'
Looking ahead, Ms Bai said she plans to continue growing her property holdings, and ultimately transition into real estate full time, but focusing on consulting rather than sales.
'As long as I can provide value, meaning, knowledge, education, guidance, diligence, then money becomes a by-product,' she said.