Tina Tyus bought her first home on a credit card without even seeing it in person.
“It wasn't just a credit card. It was my card and my husband's card. If you gave it to me, I would have used it,” said Tyus, a Hoover resident and real estate agent.
That was 31 years ago, when she bought the house at auction for $10,000.
“It ended up being a really good, really smart investment for me,” Tyus said, “but I wouldn't recommend anyone do it.”
She says that after a few years of investing and flipping houses, she learned the hard way, but with faith and a lot of research, she's found success buying, flipping, and renting real estate. Now, she's taken some of that knowledge and shared it in her new book, “Want to Flip Houses? Achieve Financial Freedom with Flipping.”
The book began as a diary, with Tyus jotting down notes to help her daughters if they ever went into real estate.
“Now, both of my kids work in the same industry as me, and when I started sharing, they were like, 'Wow, Mom, you should tell everyone,'” Tyus said. So she started writing the book, which includes personal stories, messages of faith, and a variety of lessons, including tips on credit, different taxes and decorating on a budget.
“This book isn't just about flipping houses,” Tyus says, “it's based on a lot of spiritual practices that can be useful in any business, any walk of life.”
One story Tyas tells in her book is when she wallpapered a home for someone who wasn't a client: The couple had been looking at three homes with Tyas as their agent, but they'd passed on all three. In the process, she offered to help them wallpaper their potential new home.
But the couple did not take her up on her offer until they had already purchased another home without Tyus as their agent.
“A few months later, they called me and said, 'You said you'd help me wallpaper my house, right?'” Tyus says. She was upset, but she loved the house so much that she decided to help. “In my regular real estate business, it's about people over profits. I believe in helping people, and I'll do that even if it means going above and beyond the phone.”
She spent the whole day wallpapering the house, Tyus said, and a year later, the couple sold her the house.
“It was my love for people, my genuine joy for them, that drove me in that aspect,” Tyus said. “What would I have lost if I hadn't? … I did that service for them, but in the end it became for me.”
Tyus said it was only natural to incorporate teachings from the Bible into her book because they are the lessons she follows in her daily life. She said every part of her path in life was shown to her by God. As she began to see success professionally and financially, she said her ability to give back to society changed as well.
“Now, 31 years later, I have a lot of assets and no debts, and it has changed my walk, especially as a Christian, because when you have no money, who do you think about?” Tyus said. Gaining financial freedom means having the freedom to give back to society, and Tyus said he wants more people to have that freedom.
“I want to liberate a lot of people. If I spread the little good things that God has done for me to other people, they will have their own little seeds to sow,” Tyus said.
Tyus' books are available on Amazon and through her website, tinatyus.com.