I've ripped down walls, I've taken out closets, I've refinished floors.
When I moved in, there were holes in the floors.
The place was really like gross.
There was like hair painted into the wall.
Having that pride and knowing that I was able to do this, it feels so much better than going into a room that someone else has done.
My name is Margaret Skiff.
I'm 27 years old.
And in the past year, I became a landlord when I bought my duplex in Portland, Maine in 2025.
My full-time job is as a senior experience analyst for a transportation company and I make 113000 a year.
For my social media income.
In 2025 I made around 38000, and that includes brand deals, affiliate links and creator funds.
I definitely don't think I would have been able to buy my house at the time that I did without my income from social media.
Happy Saturday I have quite a few plans today, so I'm bringing you all along.
Being a frequent Zillow browser, I'd always see places that just seemed kind of out of reach and then my landlord decided not to renew my lease and I was in a really weird spot where I was like do I move somewhere else?
Is this finally the time to buy a house?
I bought my house in April of 2025 and I put $58,000 down.
When I bought the house it was all old knob and tube wiring and I paid the electrician to completely rewire those just to make sure everything was safe and upgraded before we got into anything else.
So far in repairs and renovations, I spent around 15000.
Being a woman on the younger side, there has been times when people have said directly to me oh, when did you guys buy this house?
Or when did you all buy this house?
I'm like, oh no, it's just me me, me myself, and i bought this house.
The only renovation that i've hired out has been a drywalling project for the guest bedroom and then plumbers and electricians.
All of the other projects that we've done in this house has either been done by me alone or done by my mom and i.
Currently, the only debt that I have is my mortgage.
I have a 30 year mortgage.
I do put an extra $200 a month towards the principal on my balance.
I do feel like I have always been pretty debt averse.
My mortgage is around $4,000 a month.
I actually pay $4,200 and my tenants pay $2,000 for rent.
I did have a roommate for one month.
It just kind of ended up being a situation where it fell into place where I saw she posted in, like one of the local Facebook groups, that she was just looking for a furnished room for a month.
When I bought my home, I actually inherited the tenants downstairs.
They've lived here for 14 years and they've really made it a home here.
We have a really great relationship.
They had a pretty low rent.
I did have to raise it.
We talked about it.
I had a conversation with them.
We both came to a place that I think that we are both very happy with.
For me, I didn't really have a strategy in paying off my student loans.
It was kind of just, these are a big thing that I don't like and I don't want them there.
So whenever I went in and I was feeling especially anxious about the balance, I would just throw like an extra thousand dollars at it.
And that really helped to bring that down.
I just finished paying off those student loans in January 2026.
It was one of my New Year's resolutions.
Before I paid off my student loans, I was paying around $500 a month towards those.
I believe my minimum monthly payment was somewhere closer to $150 to $200.
But for me, the priority was paying them off.
So I was more than doubling that payment.
I bought my car in January of 2021 for $24,000 and I paid it off in March of 2025.
Lately, I haven't really been splurging on anything.
My latest splurge has been the bathroom renovation.
And to me, I'm like, that is the greatest thing that $3,500 could buy me.
I love to go out with my friends.
That is always going to be a priority.
And little experiences here and there, like maybe a weekend trip, like a cabin weekend.
Those are things that I really enjoy.
Welcome to my house.
Let me show you around.
I'll take you through some of the renovations that I have done.
In the living room here, started with some really good bones.
On the floor, they had a lot of really deep scratches.
My mom and I totally refinished these.
This was like a three, four day project.
Welcome to the dining room.
In here, we painted, did the floors, and then the ceiling, it is a drop ceiling.
I did my best to match these new plastic tiles to the tin ceiling that's in the living room.
It's not a perfect match, but it makes it a lot more cohesive through the two spaces.
In here was the only project I've paid someone to do, and that is drywalling this room.
My mom and I put new insulation on this outside wall, so it is nice and warm.
The old cellulose had fallen down and it got redrywalled repainted, and this is probably the most complete room in the house right now.
This is my newest renovation.
I am very proud of this bathroom.
I did this project completely by myself.
It's this little drywall niche to hold all of my products.
And this was a big DIY YouTube trying to figure out how to do it.
For this.
We put up all new paneling and wainscoting on the bottom, new toilet, new vanity, all new fixtures here and in the shower.
I put up this light fixture.
I had to put a whole new box in here and I spent around 3000 on this project which, if I had hired it out, I know would have been so much more than that.
This is my office.
A lot of the other places, we got rid of the paneling, but this room, I like it, so we kept it.
So I use this room to work from home.
I work right here at my desk.
The only real cost in here was paint and then the wood for the ground molding.
So that was probably around $200 total.
This kitchen here is probably the bane of my existence.
The layout doesn't make any sense.
There's no counter space.
The stove is randomly over here, but I think it can be really good.
It's a nice big space.
This is the biggest planned project on the house.
This is the one that I really want to hire someone else for, make it just really my dream kitchen.
I think coming in, I definitely saw a diamond in the rough.
I should have been a little more scared than I was looking at the home.
And I was like, oh, I can do that.
I can do that.
I can do that.
My aunt bought her first home at 26 by herself.
I think that was just always really instilled in me, that this is something that is going to really set you up for success in the future and having this for yourself.
When I was looking at homes, I wasn't looking at anything above 600000, and When I had looked before, all the multi-unit family homes were like 800000 and above.
And I'm like, that is just not happening for me anytime soon.
So in the end I found out it was much more feasible for me to actually buy a multifamily home than it was to buy a single family home.
Because with that single family, I would have had to have multiple roommates.
Whereas with my home now I'm able to live alone for right around the same price that I was paying in rent before.
I graduated from college in 2020 and my first job post-grad was in tech, making $70,000 a year.
I remember getting the offer and being like oh my God, I'm making more money than both of my parents combined.
Like, I am rich.
This is amazing.
I moved back home in with my mom in November of 2023.
I lived with my mom for about six months and the whole time she was like you're saving for a down payment.
This is you saving for a down payment.
I was cooking at home.
I wasn't going anywhere.
I wasn't going out with friends.
I wasn't traveling.
So I was really able to save up a good nest egg.
For the longest time, it did feel like buying a house was just this huge goal that I could never meet.
And now having done it once, I am excited to do it again.
Like I have multi-unit properties pop up on my Zillow all the time.
I see myself staying here for the foreseeable future because I do still have a lot of work to do.
The list of projects is still very long.
In the coming months I'm definitely planning on having a roommate again to help save up for an entire kitchen renovation.
Getting my house into a spot where I feel like it's more complete and done.
That is going to take a lot of money.
So to me, that's a financial goal.
$100,000 in savings and investments, that was also a big spot for me.
So I've hit that and now I'm working towards that $500,000 net worth goal.
