How to invest 500k and maybe retire

[Arthur Means]

Hey all,

I have a cryptocurrency investment that has matured nicely. I am thinking about an exit strategy.  I have a full time job and don't really want to self manage so any real estate would need to be fully managed and I'd basically just be collecting an annuity, if you will. 

I'm 38 years old making roughly 250k per year. I'm thinking about one thing. Retirement (seriously). But I can't seem to make the numbers make sense. 

option 1 - 500k into a mutual fund earning 8% generates about 40k a year. Not bad but not retirement level money

option 2 - single rental, no mortgage maybe makes $3000 per month or roughly the same as option 1.  

option 3 - OPM. 30k each down payment on 15 doors (section 8 maybe?).  Even at $200 per door I still make the same $3000 a month. I feel like I should be able to make more though.  I would also have 15 assets. This feels like I could retire quickly if I did some basic things right. Ultimately id like to make 10k per month but I could live on less. Can someone help with real world numbers for how I should invest this money and leverage it to maximize my return? 

[Travis Timmons]

Develop some sort of subject matter expertise or investment thesis first. Go buy 1 property and test that thesis to see if it is a good idea. Try, fail, and adjust until you really know what you are doing. Keep your job and don't deploy all that capital at once. 

You don't have enough money to make 10k per month - especially if you don't want to self manage. You need a 25% cash on cash return to get that. That is very, very unlikely - especially if you are hiring a property manager.

Throw the money in an after tax brokerage account or a short term bond/bond fund or CD yielding 5-ish% as your dry powder. Put 30-50k down on your first property, figure out if you like owning and/or managing property, and keep the rest of the money working for you while you give real estate a shot. 

Real estate is a fickle beast. You want to take her on a few dates before you decide to go all in and marry her.