Success story: from the cleaning lady to the mistress of apartment buildings
'17.08.2017'
Igor and Oksana Lukiva are from Lviv; the assets and liabilities of the family, already now allow you to go to "rest" and bask in the rays of your own significance. But not even a long stay in the USA, but the lessons taught by life, radically changed the thinking and attitude in general.
2001, Lukivy arrives on a green card to noisy New York, to the area called “Ukrainian Village”. In my pocket there are $ 2, of which half of the borrowed money, a preschool-age son, knowledge of the language at zero, but wide-open eyes, a great desire to change my life for the better, and ... Oksana's pregnancy. She is in her seventh month. The latter fact cannot in any way affect the need to fight for survival in a new habitat.
“The first job is cleaning, the first $ 7 per hour, the first joy from rustling green papers in our hands. Everything seems so simple! It’s two months before a new man appears, and you’re scrubbing floors, dusting off, cleaning toilets, remembering this and that, at home, where you and your husband were engaged in a small leather goods business, “buy and sell”. Completely different sensations of the fullness of life, but here - bam! America. I'm a cleaning lady! The initial slight euphoria passes, you curse everything in the world, you want to go home. But. There is no turning back! ”.
Moreover, two weeks after arrival, you have to leave a relative's apartment in New York. Stress, where to go!
The universe sends the family of a priest from Connecticut, the town of Bricport, to new emigrants, and they are helped without any conditions. Oksana gave birth to her second son, her husband Igor began working at a construction site, like most of the newly arrived Ukrainians. Four months later, he firmly decided that building in the constant expectation of the completion of the working day would not lead to anything good, and left this venture forever. Seeking himself, new horizons, new professions, new hopes brings him to the factory, working, and this drags on for almost two years. Oksana continues to clean the apartments, only with the difference that she works for herself, and the first own clients appear!
2003 year. The family sells their Lviv apartment, reports their earnings, takes a bank loan and buys their first apartment in the United States. “The area is so-so,” says Oksana. - Many neighbors were on state support, around crime, drugs and prostitutes, respectively, the school and the street along which my son walks leave much to be desired. We need to change something. " Selling an apartment, buying a house for two families with separate entrances, changing the area to a more favorable one definitely solve something, but this is not enough for the Lukivs.
Such real estate transactions are pushing Igor's entrepreneurial brain to discovery. After all, if you buy a house with the support of a bank and rent it out, you capitalize yourself, and the best part is passive income! Here it is! But there is not enough money for implementation!
And here again the universe, God, providence, and maybe hyper-persistence, as you wish to call, sends help in the form of friends. Those simply help with the missing amount for the first installment in a rather risky project, believing in their enterprise and displaying humanity. The bank issues another loan. The risk was really great, because the house that the family buys for the realization of the plan is cheap, but is in a bad area and ... After the fire!
Then everything began to turn, it was oh-oh-very difficult, says Oksana. For days and nights, square fits were restored by their own efforts. Very slow build-up of additional volumes of real estate, a good credit history contributed to this. Buying and repairing a house for six three-room apartments nearly nullified all efforts. The search for decent tenants, lawsuits, lawsuits, against those same tenants who did not pay on time, or even did not pay! Tenants with small children will not be thrown into the street, but you have a bank loan, so there really was a chance to lose everything.
2008. The mortgage crisis, market decline. Not life, but a solid MADDOM !!! Despite the fact that for all the time Oksana and Igor (he is already an engineer in the hotel, she still cleans up) do not leave the main work. And also children, the birth of a third son, and still a feeling of being unnecessary in this country, constant stress, “working hard” 24/7! In the end, Oksana “earns” a spinal hernia, exhaustion and deep depression by cleaning apartments. But everything was just beginning!
Yes, 9 years after arriving in the United States, there were already 4 houses in the property, 3 of which are “almost” stable business))) They laid the foundation for the construction of a new, own house, in a good, respectable area, moved into it, by the way, an annual the tax on the Lukivs' nest is $ 10, and this is not a show-off, this is not a lot and not a little, this is normal. All thanks to the active work of both. Igor, however, still continues to be an employee. For his business, he is a strategist, commander and implementer. Indefatigable energy person with positive thinking.
Last year, the family sold a "multi-apartment" house with "problem" tenants, partly invested the proceeds in a shop selling alcohol in Stamford, in which the adult eldest son Oleg works. The store is a separate topic. I will only note that Oleg entered the police academy three times (!!!), and after 1% was not enough for him to pass, he decided to follow in the footsteps of his parents, to become an entrepreneur. Now in the city there is a liquor store with an excellent choice, with a smart, always well-groomed, perfectly shaven young man with a wide smile. And you know, he is in the material, he rushes from this occupation. Oksana has been supporting the family business for several years now, and on Fridays and Saturdays she can be found at the store counter, helping her son from time to time, as well as her husband.
The period of "cleaning" has sunk into oblivion, but left a deep mark. Therefore, it is possible that they help many, very quietly. Constantly on the move, they set new goals together with their son.
For America, this is a common story of the so-called middle class, and this can only be in this country with absolutely anyone! A skeptic lying on the couch, or working from bell to bell, will say: "Well, why bother so hard?" I will answer on my own. Because they can't do it any other way! Their success is coupled with family, love, wife's faith in husband and herself, risk mixed with unusually high capacity for work and perseverance.
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