What Would you Do?

[Derek Morrison]

How possible is it to get started in 2024? I have about 15k liquid cash and live in MA. I'm looking at properties here (basically anything east of worcester and within an hour of Boston. Pretty much everything I've looked at either:

A) doesn't cash flow for about 15 years

B) would cash flow if you bought it with cash, but at that point you could get much better returns investing that money elsewhere

Even looking at house hacking it seems that the savings on rent (about 2.5k/month median) are outweighed by the significantly higher cost of purchasing property. Anyone have any firsthand take on this?

[V.G Jason]

If you're looking at investing in MA or any state, I'd probably wait till you have enough for 25% downpayment + closing costs and about 70-100% of capex reserves + vacancies set aside comfortably. Or house hack with 10-15% down + closing costs but same % of reserves.

Until then, keep saving in a HYSA or as "risk-free" as on option with some yield will provide.

You're not situated to be an REI right now, just deal with it.