Legacy Six Enterprise, LLC: Creating Legacies in Detroit

It gives me great pleasure to introduce stars in the making on CCM's blog series: Entrepreneurs Inspire!  Today, I have six of them to present to you.  I first heard the name, Legacy 6, LLC in November of 2014, thanks in full to my subscription to Community Investor magazine.  The magazine published a story, "Dire Streets," to help the company get the media attention it deserves.  The follow-up story, "First Steps to a Legacy," published on the magazine's January edition, was equally compelling.  So much so that I felt the need to have CEO Christopher Jones, come on as a guest author here at CCM blog.  I am quite positive that after reading Christopher's post, you too will join the Legacy 6 cheer squad as I have.  Enjoy!

My name is Christopher Jones, CEO of Legacy Six Enterprise LLC. Our company was founded a year ago in February of 2014 by me and 5 of my childhood friends. Legacy Six is a real estate investment company that operates primarily within the Detroit, Michigan metropolitan area. Our focus is creating the best solutions for any real estate investment need, whether you are a first time home buyer looking for your dream home, or an investor looking to maximize your return on every dollar. We also have a number of unique resources that allows us to offer financial support to anyone in need of assistance. Our goal is to not only build legacies for anyone that partners with us, but to use our expertise to rebuild the city my business partners and I were born and raised in.

Before Legacy Six, my partners: Calvin Allen, Deon Watkins, Darrin Singer, Emmett Allen, Treyveon Wilson, and I lived on the west side of Detroit on Burt Road. We met and quickly became good friends. Living in a neighborhood overrun with violence and drugs, we did a pretty good job of keeping each other out of trouble, and most importantly alive! Some of our other acquaintances, sad to say, were not that fortunate. We had a different mindset though. Our thoughts never wandered too far away from the notion that there had to be a “way out".

After graduating high school, armed with the American dream and very little money, we attended college and obtained full-time jobs to make ends meet. It didn't take very long for us all to come to the same realization: wealth cannot be created without entrepreneurship. So we put our heads together, and after considering our financial state and the resources we had available to us, real estate investing became the obvious choice. It is one of the only businesses  that can be started and operated with little to no money up front and with the Detroit real estate market at an all time low, we knew we could buy property at extreme discounts.

So we started our company, Legacy Six Enterprise LLC. The name came about because there are six of us, striving to build a legacy for ourselves and our families. Real estate seemed pretty easy at first. All we have to do is buy a house for cheap, fix it up, and then sell it for a bunch of money right? Wrong! We found out the hard way that we needed a lot more education in this field. After spending way too much money purchasing our first investment, we decided we would begin doing a lot more research and educating ourselves. The things we learned were fascinating!  Real estate was a lot more than simply buying, fixing, and selling property. We learned that there are many options when dealing with each individual property. We also learned that we could help people, not only get into a really great situation, but also get out of really bad ones.

We ended up selling our first investment property to a friend of ours, who was in desperate need. He had just lost his job, and because his wife didn't make enough money to support them both, they were evicted from their home. We offered to sell our house to them on land contract for just about what we had originally paid for it. We were satisfied with making the money we spent back, but we got a tremendous amount of gratification, by just being able to help out our friend.    

Although it has only been a year, I feel like we have learned a lifetime worth of lessons. Starting a business isn't easy. It takes a lot of dedication and tons of patience. The benefit my business partners and I have is being able to count on each other. A strong team, working toward a common goal, is essential to any successful business. Most entrepreneurs will not be as fortunate as I am to have a team I grew up with as a foundation, but you can always build a team by simply networking and linking up with individuals with similar interests. Also, insure that your business is one that brings you satisfaction, not just by making you money, but by having a product of service you can be proud of every day.  I hope this has helped you make a decision that can improve your life.

Thank You,

Christopher Jones CEO of Legacy Six Enterprise LLC

legacy6.llc@gmail.com