Old World Investments LLC is a company of one, Little ole me. But "little ole me" doesn't do this alone. There is a whole team rockin' this show!
Hello, I'm Jennifer McQuerrey and I'm an alcoholic. Wait, what? I'm not an alcoholic... Let me start over. Hello, I'm Jennifer McQuerrey. I was born and raised in South Charleston WV and graduated from SCHS in 1990. I went on to intern at Disney World in college and graduated from Marshall University in 1994 with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing.
I did the regular life stuff after college. Worked stupid jobs for years. Got married. Popped out a monster. Oh, the monster... that changed everything. I quit working and totally devoted myself to raising my little beast.
But one day, that little beast LEFT ME to go to school during the day. And what was I to do? I had no clue. I wanted to work and do something fulfilling and to have some time with actual adults that didn't talk back. But I also wanted to be full-time Mommy. I wanted to be there to take her to school. To be there to pick her up from school. To be home when there was a snow day, Basically, to work ONLY when she was at school.
What in the hell kind of job allows all that??? NONE, that's the kind. So I knew I had to create my own job. Being a list maker, I made pages of lists of possibilities. And somehow, I settled on being a house flipper. Keep in mind, I knew NOTHING about buying, remodeling or selling houses. NOTHING! But what I did have was a ridiculous work ethic and a thirst for learning everything I could. And then, totally unprepared, I just jumped in and didn't look back.
I started hunting for houses. And I found one! Almost right behind my dad's house. Awesome, I had a built in babysitter if I had to go take care of something when she was out of school. It couldn't have been a more perfect first flip. This was WAY back in 2001!
Skip forward a few more flips and then I formed Old World Investments LLC in 2005.
I flipped and rented mostly in South Charleston all the way up to 2022 and then I got a wild hair, sold everything and moved to Panama City Beach, Florida. Livin' the dream. Beach walks. Amazing sunsets over the Gulf. Palm trees. Dolphins. Perfection!
I maybe skipped a bunch of stuff between 2005 and 2024. Divorce. Monster grew up. "Left" me and did big girl stuff like getting a Masters in Biostatistics (Yep, she's SMART, like ME. Oh wait, she got her brains from her dad), getting married, buying a house. Basically becoming a totally self-sufficient adult. I've always been an over-achiever but I really outdid myself with that girl!
Fast forward to 2024 and my house addiction got me! I love it so much! I love watching the houses transform. I love watching the neighbors light up when they watch the eyesore house come back to life. I love the impact it has on the whole neighborhood, I just love everything about it!
But I also love my morning walks on the sugary white sands of the Gulf of Mexico. So, what was I to do??? BOTH, I chose both! Sometimes choices don't have to be one or the other. Sometimes they can be BOTH!
So now I go back and forth between West Virgina and Florida about every 2-3 weeks. I live in Rock Lake Village in South Charleston when I'm in WV, and in Laguna Beach on the west end of Panama City Beach when I'm in Florida. It takes 13 hours each way and it sucks every bit as much as you'd imagine.
It's weird to leave my idiot boyfriend (Yes, he's an idiot, but he's MY idiot!) and cats behind in Florida, but we all talk nightly. Little Black meows at me most nights but other nights she sits on Patrick's phone when she's had enough of my voice.
It's kind of fun starting over from scratch with flips and rentals, this time with 20+ years of experience behind me. I'm getting a do over!
I've gotten a little crazy this time and decided to add the West Side of Charleston to my focus. I love South Charleston and will always invest there. But I feel like as much as South Charleston WANTS me. The West Side NEEDS me.
As much bad as there is to say about the West Side, there is just as much good there too. I feel like it's at a tipping point right now. It can either go down in flames in the next 10 years if nothing is done, or it can spring back to life with a lot of community effort pushing it in the right direction. Line up bitches, we have a boulder to push! Let's get to it!
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Go to www.YouTube.com/OldWorldRentals to see before and after videos of the houses over the years, goofy videos of the Maintenance Badasses that do the hard work, old news stories on the company, and me yapping on the news about landlord issues.
