Victor Bomi had been working with one of the largest insurance companies in the country as a financial adviser for only six months when he resigned to focus on his real estate business. At just 26, his company, ATLCO Real Estate Inc. has now closed over $3 million worth of real estate acquisitions in the Atlanta area and with its partnership with E&E Capital Management, manages more than $25 million in real estate assets.
The Nigerian-born entrepreneur had always known he was going to end up in the real estate business. While he was a student at the University of West Georgia, he intentionally took classes that schooled him on the financial markets, asset classes and what made them different. He said he needed to know why investors favored certain assets over another, instead of getting a degree in real estate.
“I took one real estate class when I was in college and I can tell you that it didn’t have any real-world applications,” Bomi told Black Enterprise.
While he was still a student in 2012, he launched then-Bomiventures L.L.C. and business was booming. So much so, that on several occasions, he had to leave his lecture halls to take business calls. Revenues from his business at the time paid for his apartment, he said. He would take a year off college to work on his business full time only to return in 2014 to complete a BBA degree in finance.
After graduation, Bomi was recruited by one of the largest insurance companies in the world, an opportunity he was excited to take on. But six months into the job, he quit to work on his business, whose revenues dwarfed his paycheck at the time. Working at the insurance giant, however, gave him a front-line experience on how companies build for longevity, passing down wealth to generations, he said.
“I learned the importance of being a relationship first firm, and how putting our clients’ best interest at heart leads to the long-term success of the company,” Bomi said.
Bomi said he started out working exclusively with hedge funds and high net-worth investors but has since expanded to focus on working-class professionals and families, with the sole intent of helping his clients create financial freedom. Although the majority of American millennials say that they have intentions of becoming business owners, but 77% of them hold back because they view business startups as too risky. This is where Bomi’s Legacy Investors Club comes in. A couple of years back, after fielding numerous questions from people who were looking to get into real estate investing, he said he created the platform to provide real estate investing and financial literacy education.
For millennials interested in getting into the real estate game, Bomi wants you to have a plan in place and a way of going about it. “You have to understand the pros and cons about investing, and you also need to know what your options are,” he said. “You can put your money in the stock market, but the stock market is volatile and your money isn’t secure against the (stock market) drops. The great thing about real estate is that it is a secure asset no matter what happens, and historically, it has always given more returns than the stock market.”
Editor’s Note: This article was updated on May 29, 2018.