Best Multi-family methods to get started?

[Bradley R Stillabower]

I'm just a few weeks into the 6-12 months I'm giving myself to get educated on REI before I have access to capital and start making decisions and (potentially) taking action.

Generally, I plan to 

- spend most of my time being very diligent and involved in front-end analysis of deals, while 

- being minimally-involved (passive) in the back-end property management.  

So I'm mostly being drawn to multi-family properties, buy-and-hold, starting with small residential properties for the first 3-5 years (starting with a house-hack for my daughter, and potentially another for my recently-widowed MIL), and after a few more small residential properties then maybe scale slightly to a couple small apartment properties.  In total, an initial acquisition phase for 5-8 years, followed by up to 10 years of debt paydown, then free-and-clear retirement cash-flow before finally passing it all down to the kids and/or (future) grandkids to enjoy/deploy/sustain/grow the equity to good use.

My question is:  what is best method(s) (for me) to start with (in sequence or in parallel) for the first few properties/deals:

A.  passively invest in a syndication deal(s)

B.  purchase from a complete turnkey provider

C.  a turnkey purchase but self-manage for a period of time

D.  a hands-on "manual" purchase:  find an agent/broker/lender team and do the deal hunting/analysis directly with them

Keeping in mind I'll be working a full-time W2 job in the meantime, at least for the next 4-7 years before retirement at age ~60-63.

Thank you, appreciate any insights

Brad

[James Wise]

Quote from @Bradley R Stillabower:

I'm just a few weeks into the 6-12 months I'm giving myself to get educated on REI before I have access to capital and start making decisions and (potentially) taking action.

Generally, I plan to 

- spend most of my time being very diligent and involved in front-end analysis of deals, while 

- being minimally-involved (passive) in the back-end property management.  

So I'm mostly being drawn to multi-family properties, buy-and-hold, starting with small residential properties for the first 3-5 years (starting with a house-hack for my daughter, and potentially another for my recently-widowed MIL), and after a few more small residential properties then maybe scale slightly to a couple small apartment properties.  In total, an initial acquisition phase for 5-8 years, followed by up to 10 years of debt paydown, then free-and-clear retirement cash-flow before finally passing it all down to the kids and/or (future) grandkids to enjoy/deploy/sustain/grow the equity to good use.

My question is:  what is best method(s) (for me) to start with (in sequence or in parallel) for the first few properties/deals:

A.  passively invest in a syndication deal(s)

B.  purchase from a complete turnkey provider

C.  a turnkey purchase but self-manage for a period of time

D.  a hands-on "manual" purchase:  find an agent/broker/lender team and do the deal hunting/analysis directly with them

Keeping in mind I'll be working a full-time W2 job in the meantime, at least for the next 4-7 years before retirement at age ~60-63.

Thank you, appreciate any insights

Brad

If you follow the punch list below, you'll probably have success with any of your strategies.

• Don't buy in the roughest neighborhood in the urban core. Pick a solid B-Class suburban area. 
• Always hire a 3rd party property inspector to give you an unbiased feel for the home. The reports are 40-90 pages long and go through the entire house in great detail.
• Get an appraisal. If your using financing the bank requires this. This is good. The bank isn't going to let you blow their money. They have more skin in the game then you do.
• Make sure you get clear title. If using a lender this is a non issue. They will make you do this. It's those maniacs that buy homes cash via quit claim deed off of craigslist that really get screwed.
• Make sure your property manager is a licensed real estate brokerage.
• Google Clayton Morris and/or Morris Invest for a cautionary tale of what not to do when buying turnkey real estate
• Understand you can not eliminate all risk, only mitigate it. If you are risk averse, real estate, (especially out of state) is not for you.