What would you do for a 15 year plan?

Question

I'm 43 and looking to get started with investing in the Indianapolis area. I want to build a portfolio of properties until I'm 60. So I'm just going to say 15 years. Does anyone have suggestions on how you would maximize the next 15 years given the current market? If you were completely wiped out and had 15 years to start over, what would you do? I have about 80K in a heloc, good credit, and a full time job to get started.I want to build wealth the best way possible for when I'm 60. I don't feel like I have time to, for example, dabble in single family rentals and then move to multi, if that's not the best course of action for the time I have. Similarily, I don't want to spend time rehabbing if that not the best use of time. Or, is trying to go too fast a huge mistake? I really envy these 20-something year old people on here.

I know there are a lot of "if this and if that" but I'm just looking to create a 15 year plan and looking for general advice and experience of others. Thank you.

Jesse Hyder · Answer

@David Stuffle This is a pretty good plan http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2012/12/12/make-a-million-dollars/ I'm actually on this plan and didnt even know it! Adjust to your own style/flavor. Today is the day, forget that envy nonsense and start working on your own bright future in REI. For every 20-30-40-50-60-70 year old on here there are MILLIONS who wont even take the first step so get that out of your mind and get going! :-D

Mike D'Arrigo · Answer

Account Closed I actually think you're in great shape. Having $80K to work with at 43 y/o is a good place to be. You can very easily set yourself to be very financially secure in less that 15 years, especially in the market where you live even with single family homes.The first thing you need to decide is where you want to be in those 15 years and then put a plan together to build a portfolio to achieve it. I help investors with less cash available than you have and do a lot of it in the Indianapolis market among others. I host a weekly real estate investment radio show and you can listen to the podcasts of the show on my website at www.investwithpinnacle.com which might give you some good insight. Let me know if I can be of help. Best wishes, Mike

Taylor Jennings · Answer

Account Closed Welcome to BiggerPockets! Good to see another Hamilton County resident here =) "I really envy these 20-something year old people on here." I really envy those 40 somethings with $80k sitting around ha There are plenty of ways to get started with your 15yr plan, but I would suggest you figure out what 2-3 areas of REI you would be interested knowing more about before jumping in. Finding out what you would be comfortable doing is crucial to the amount of worries you have with your money. From what it sounds like you don't have the time to be very active? There are several groups I would recommend you get involved with here locally to help educate you on your options. One would be our BiggerPockets meetup group that gets together about once a month. http://bit.ly/IndyREIMeetup

Jerry W. · Answer

If I were starting over and had just 15 years, I would try to find the highest purchase price to rent ratio, and buy as many as I could with as much leverage as I could. As income started coming in I would try to buy a few high quality rentals to keep but most just for cash flow. I would hold about 5 to 8K in cash for reserve, and use my job income to buy even more rentals. I would fiance only a few houses for 30 years and finance the rest for 15 years so they are paid off when I retire and are cash flow only.

Mark Ferguson · Answer

If I were wiped out I would start buying owner occupant houses for cheap and then turn them into rentals a year later and repeat the process until I couldn't stand it anymore. i would buy as many investor properties as I had the cash for and refinance them after a year to get more cash. This all assumes they have great cash flow and you can get them below market. My market also caters to SFR better than Multi which may not be the case in your area. I have a ten year plan to buy 100 SFRs. I think I would think about your perfect life in 15 years and ten work the plan backwards for what you need to do each year, each month and start taking action.

Jeff Rabinowitz · Answer

15 years is way too long to plan for. No matter what area of real estate you gravitate toward you will experience 3-6 different cycles in that period. What is important is to do something NOW. Read through the forums, attend your local REIA meeting, decide on an investment and do the deal. Then do it again and again. You can modify as you go but you must actually invest in order to benefit from real estate.

Gautam Venkatesan · Answer

@David Stuffle - try looking into turnkey rentals in your area (I do not know your area sorry!) it will provide you with a rehabbed property, tenants in place with property management, etc. so it is as passive as it gets. This model usually works better when you have a few properties in hand so that the cash flow can be used to pay off one property at a time faster getting you free and clear properties in 15 years.