Need Career Advice

[Chad Verde]

Any advice from active RE investors would be appreciated. I've been in the commercial valuation industry for the past 5 years appraising office, industrial, and multifamily buildings nationally for institutional investors. Currently at a large global firm (at Houston location). A bit run down of the repetitiveness, lack of fulfillment, and overall client-pleasing obligations that must be met for every assignment. Money is good, consistently pull-in say $150-$200k although being extremely busy with very long hours. I just don't care anymore. I like real estate so I intend to stay in the space. If you had 12 months of expenses saved up, would y'all go all-in with real estate investing/entrepreneurship path? I'm thinking wholesaling, JV for acquisitions/renovate/dispositions, etc. Obviously meeting others/ a mentor in this space and doing the grunt work in exchange for their 10,000 hours would shorten the learning curve. I know know any path in this industry will be difficult but transitioning and applying the same amount of hours I work now, I'm sure it will lead to success eventually. For what it's worth, my current job has a very high barrier to entry in terms of experience/licensing so I can get hired tomorrow and make the same money if I ever needed to come back.

[Evan Polaski]

@Chad Verde, welcome to just about every job, including being a real estate investor.  It all becomes repetitive.  Owning your own company still has clients (whether they are tenants or investors) that need to be kept happy.  And, you will still be working long hours, but now for very little pay (at least for the first few years).  

Now onto real advice: I would not quit.  If you want to be a real estate investor, often times you can do it on the side for a while.  I have a friend that owns over 200 SFRs himself.  He maintained a full time job up to about 120 units.  Additionally, if you are looking to build any type of portfolio yourself, you will need capital, and often times your W2 is what will let you get loans that you would not get without a W2.  

Obviously, there are people that leave W2s to get into real estate full time.  But real estate investing is investing.  It takes a lot of capital invested to start making enough returns to match your current income.  If you figure 10% annual returns, that means you need $2mm equity invested to earn $200k/yr.  And if you are living off all $200k, you will not have more to invest to keep your income growing.

So all told, if you are feeling burnt out, I encourage you to find a way to resolve that.  It is never fun.  Whether that be starting the side hustle of real estate investing, or finding a new job, but, personally, I would not suggest you leave a well paying job until you have started down the path of real estate investing on the side.