Tom and Jaime Devoe (Devoes on the Roll)

Tom and Jaime Devoe (Devoes on the Roll) 13

Age:38/31

Travels: Full-time

Traveling Since: July 2014

Business Name: Rolling Renovation

Blog: www.devoesontheroll.com

Occupation:Real Estate investors

Here is Their Story

The Income

Honestly, making a living was secondary when it came to our decision to hit the road.  We had a vague idea of how we would do it, but really didn’t have one perfect plan to make it happen. 

We had a history in real estate and investing in rehab projects previously, so we knew that would be the ticket to catapulting and funding our travel dreams.

What do we do?

We find properties around the country, do market research, purchase the right one and take a few months to rehab and flip it while enjoying and touring the area with our two kids.  We aren’t that much different than the couples who flip houses on HGTV…except when we do it, we actually get dirty!

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Getting on the Road

When we wanted to start our nomadic lives, we actually spent a lot of time researching different ideas.  What we soon learned is that everyone paves their own way and there is no one size fits all manual to hitting the road.

Our passion was clearly in real estate and so the transition was simple for us.  We just had to make the decision to leave our previous life behind and pursue our real dreams.

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The Fears

Could we do this…leave our jobs behind and create our own income?  Real estate was central to our life in our sticks and bricks, but we weren’t working for ourselves at that time.  We both had jobs previous to setting sail and we were hoping that our dreaming wasn’t fogging reality.

In the end, we had to ask ourselves, “If we do this, what is the worst that can happen?”  So, we prepared ourselves for one year on the road.  In that time, we could determine if this dream was a true reality.  If the worst thing was that we took a year off to see our beautiful country with our kids and nothing else came of it, then that was reason enough to make it happen.

The Awesome Side

Freedom and adventure.  Breaking free from the confines of a job.  There’s something to be said for living without someone else telling you when you can take a vacation, what hours are truly yours and realizing you no longer have to punch the time clock.  The ability to travel wherever we want, stay as long as we want and truly be free to live life as the adventure it should be is incredible.

We love the new places, new people, new experiences and every day is different and exciting.

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Challenges

With anything you do in life, there are challenges.  Learning and understanding each local market and teaming up with local professionals takes quite a bit of research and was somewhat overwhelming at first, especially on a national scale.  The real estate market wasn’t the same everywhere.   

Finding the right property and the right location without boundaries can be quite difficult.  Finding a property was much easier when we were living in one city, yet still risky, but to take it on the road was a whole new risk. 

We soon found that there would be sweet spots or target locations where we could establish an understanding of the market and team up with contractors we could trust and that would be the key to the rest of our travels.

For the Aspiring

We spent way too much time and energy learning how other people work on the road when all we really needed to be concentrating on was how we were going to do it.  Our path differed drastically from most other full-timers, but for us there was no other way.  We adapted our work to our nomadic lifestyle.

We knew our dreams revolved around building a real estate portfolio for ourselves.  We also knew that our dreams consisted of travel, simplicity and adventure.  So we set out to blend these dreams without any other examples to follow.

We love meeting the other couples and families on the road who have taken that same leap.  There is a great sense of support and encouragement from fellow RVers, which makes it fun to see everyone on their own unique journey.

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In the End are we Happy?

We wouldn’t trade our decision to hit the road for anything.  Life is an adventure and while a life on the road isn’t perfect, we aren’t stuck wondering when we will have a chance to actually live our life. 

As a family, we are seeing places that we would never have seen, experiencing new aspects of America and its unique culture and these experiences would have never happened staying in our “sticks and bricks” lifestyle. 

One of our favorite quotes, which was actually pinned to my cubicle at work, pretty much sums it up:

 “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” –Seth Godin

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