Every successful business owner has a starting point. For Dwellynn’s Founder Ola Dantis, it started when he moved to the US from the UK. Ola grew up in the UK when he relocated there at the age of 16 and then to the United States as an adult.
He likes to say that he is “living the American dream after living on 3 continents and starting businesses on 2 continents”, but his journey to real estate investing was not a straight line or a part of his original plan.
Some years ago, he and his wife thought they were already living the American dream. They lived in luxury apartments and had well-paying jobs. They enjoyed their lifestyle, but for Ola, something was still missing.
After working a 9-to-5 day after day, all of his days began to look and feel the same. He wondered if there was more. Then one day, he got a pivotal call from a friend from the UK who asked him if he would like to meet up in Dubai. The friend was preparing to meet with some real estate investors and wanted Ola to help him reorganize his business. Feeling compelled to go, Ola met up with his friend.
Ola says that what happened next propelled him into the real estate business. He did not know what to expect when meeting up with his friend but says getting to see firsthand how real estate deals are done planted a seed that only grew when he returned to the US.
Not one to sit on his laurels, Ola immediately dove into learning about the real estate industry. He searched on Google, in books and whatever he could get his hands on to learn as much as he could. In just 4 months after he visited Dubai, he and his wife purchased their first property, a duplex in Baltimore, Maryland in a Class A area near John Hopkins.
“In America, it’s not about how much money you make; It’s about how much money you keep, and investing in real estate helps me keep more of my money.” Ola Dantis, Dwellynn Founder
From HouseHacking a Small Duplex to Multi-Million Dollar Deals
After his first duplex purchase, he says he and his wife were hooked. They moved into the downstairs empty apartment of the duplex while the tenants in the above unit paid them. Ola says that his eureka moment came when his wife suggested that they could be set financially with a few more properties. He agreed, and the idea spurred him to continue learning and investing.
In his search for knowledge, he found a successful commercial real estate coach willing to coach him, but Ola says his fee was outside his budget. Instead of letting this stop him, Ola was honest with the coach and asked if he could pay him monthly instead of one lump sum like other students, and the coach agreed. Ola saw this as an excellent opportunity to learn how to step up the size of his real estate deals, so he signed on.
The Two-Year Detour
Ola admits that one of his worst mistakes was getting sidetracked from his original pursuit when someone he met in Maryland suggested he flip houses instead for a quicker return on investment. Ola found out the hard way that flipping houses was not for him.
As a perfectionist, he says he micromanaged projects, which caused frustration for everyone involved. Flipping houses did not align with his personality, so the process caused more stress than expected. He eventually returned to his original plan and continued working with the coach, but by this time, he had missed out on two years of learning, and many of the students who started with him were already doing multi-million dollar multifamily deals. Despite the setback, Ola adjusted his course and began moving forward again.
Hard Work Finally Pays Off
Ola’s first big apartment building purchase came after he joined some investors he met in his coaching program on one of their deals. This was his first major purchase, a 160-unit apartment complex in Houston, TX. After the acquisition, Ola realized the endless possibilities, so he and his wife moved to Houston, TX.
“Geography is everything. If you want to be a farmer selling potatoes, you’re gonna go to Idaho. You are better off going to where the opportunity is. If you want to be an actor or an actress, you don’t go to Montana, you go to Los Angeles. If you want to be a stock trader in America, you go to Wall Street in New York City.” – Ola Dantis
Geography is everything, especially in Multifamily Investing, so he wanted to be in the right place to fully pursue his dream of owning, building and managing large multifamily assets. The move to Houston was of course intentional. Ola says he wanted to go where the real estate market was growing, but they arrived at the beginning of 2020, right before the Covid-19 outbreak. After such an enormous sacrifice of traveling across the country and enduring the unexpected shutdown, Ola still pressed forward despite the challenges. In early 2021, he closed on a 22-unit apartment building and by the end of the year, had closed a deal on a 178-unit apartment building.
Ola tells his story because he wants other entrepreneurs to understand that the roads to success are seldom straight. They are filled with obstacles and lots of twists and turns, but if you persevere and continue to focus on the outcome you desire, eventually dedication pays off. To learn more about Ola and his multifamily investment firm, visit the Dwellynn website.
