2 min read
Sources:
press and public records, Kevin's account, his own videos, Kevin's account (Sept 29, 2026)
["default","default","lime","default"]
Short answer
Twenty, by a few days. He closed in February 2012, having turned 20 on January 28; one profile says 19, the age he was when he started writing offers in fall 2011. The house was a foreclosed fixer in Ventura with no kitchen and no bathrooms, bought for $305,000 with an FHA 203k renovation loan, 3.5% down, about $6,500 of his money and $6,500 of Lauren’s. Because 203k reimbursements were slow, he borrowed from a client who took a second lien so he could renovate fast. They moved in August 2012. 123
Age at closing: 20 (February 2012; born January 28, 1992)
Price: $305,000 (foreclosed fixer, Ventura)
Loan: FHA 203k (3.5% down, renovation costs rolled in)
Cash in: ~$13,000 ($6,500 each from Kevin and Lauren)
The age
Kevin was born January 28, 1992. He started writing offers in the fall of 2011, at 19, and closed in February 2012, days after turning 20. A Business Insider-sourced profile says 19; Kevin’s own dated account puts the closing at 20. Both are printed here. 123
The house
A foreclosed fixer in Ventura, bought for $305,000. The profile quotes him: no kitchen, the bathrooms were gone, the toilets were gone, it was a disaster. 1
How a 20-year-old bought it
Kevin’s account
In the fall of 2011, with $6,500 to my name and Lauren with about $6,500 saved, I started writing offers with a Bank of America pre-approval. Everyone was warning about a double-dip recession. I took the opposite view: if everybody is dogging on real estate, now must be the time to buy. I got a deal in February 2012 with an FHA 203k renovation loan. Because 203k compliance was such a challenge, I borrowed money from a client who took a second lien on the property, which let me renovate fast and get reimbursed by the lender ahead of schedule. We moved in August 2012. 2
An FHA 203k loan is a government-insured mortgage that finances both the purchase and the repairs, with a down payment as low as 3.5%. The catch is that the lender pays out repair money in stages after inspection, which is slow for someone doing the work himself. The client’s second-lien loan bridged that gap.
Why it is the most important page about Kevin
Every part of Reinvest’s strategy is in this deal: buy when others are afraid, buy the ugliest house on the street, use leverage carefully or not at all, and keep it. The company now does the same with 38 properties, except that it uses investor capital instead of an FHA loan and carries no mortgage at all.
In his own videos
March 2019, telling the story: the loan was an FHA 203k, 3.5% down on the price plus about $50,000 of renovation money; the house had no toilets. He titled the video at 19, which was his age when the offers went in. 4
August 2019: the first property had no kitchen and no toilets, was a short sale, and took two months to be accepted. 5
November 2020, reacting to his CNBC profile with Lauren: the fix-up money came from the bank through the 203k loan, and he took a shard of metal in the eye during the renovation. 6
From the September 29, 2026 Q&A
Kevin’s account
Confirmed, with an additional hard money loan of $25,000 from a client. That client was the first for-sale listing I ever had: a six-unit apartment building, which took 11 months to sell, including evicting a non-paying tenant in the largest unit. 7
A 20-year-old with $6,500 bought a house with no kitchen using a government renovation loan, then borrowed from a client to fix it fast. That deal is the company’s business model in miniature. 12
Simply put
✅ How old
➡️ Twenty. He turned 20 in late January 2012 and closed in February.
➡️ He was 19 when he started making offers in late 2011, which is why some profiles say 19.
✅ How he bought it
➡️ FHA 203k loan: a government-backed mortgage that lets you borrow the repair money too, with 3.5% down.
➡️ He and Lauren each put in about $6,500.
➡️ The loan reimburses repairs slowly, so a client lent him money against the house so he could finish quickly.
✅ Why it matters
➡️ Everyone told him real estate was about to crash again. He bought anyway.
➡️ Buy a wreck cheap, fix it, keep it. That is still the plan at Reinvest.
Sources
leaders.com profile, citing Business Insider ($305,000 foreclosure fixer at 19; about $8,000 each to renovate; "no kitchen, the bathrooms were gone"), Open
Kevin's account, The $305,000 house: “I got a deal in February 2012: a complete fixer-upper for $305,000 with an FHA 203k renovation loan.” Read the excerpt
Wikipedia, Kevin Paffrath (birth date January 28, 1992), Open
Kevin on YouTube, "How I Bought my First Property at 19 Years Old." (2019-03-11), at 7:36: “we did what's called an FHA 203k renovation loan, that means we were able to put three and a half percent down on the price of the property plus what we wanted to spend on renovations, which was another 50 grand” Watch from 7:36
Kevin on YouTube, "AirBnB Mold made this Person a Fortune" (2019-08-11), at 6:41: “the very first property I ever bought, I bought and it didn't have a kitchen, it didn't have toilets, and I bought it using an FHA 203k renovation loan. Now it took an entire two months before we actually heard that we officially got the deal, that's because this is a short sale” Watch from 6:41
Kevin on YouTube, "I JUST Got on CNBC! Reacting to Myself on Millennial Money" (2020-11-20), at 9:38: “we were able to finance the fix up money from the bank by getting an FHA 203k loan” Watch from 9:38
Kevin's account (Sept 29, 2026), Question 4, the first house Read the excerpt
