What kind of niche and strategy best fits my goals?

[Lucas Mills]

Hello -

Like many others here (apparently), I am brand new to BP and recently stumbled across it via the podcast.

Long story short - I have a full time job but don't particularly like working 40 hours/week nor do I particularly like working under someone.

To that end, I began to consider real estate investing as a means to alter my life. Here is my ideal scenario:

1. Educate myself and discover my niche and strategy

2. Purchase some kind of property within the next year

3. Begin to make a passive income stream from renting it

4. Buy and rent more properties as able

5. Eventually transition out of my full-time job

6. Enjoy passive income from x amount of rental properties and have more time to do things I want to do

I have no desire to constantly be buying and selling (is this generally more profitable?), instead, I would prefer to hold onto properties and let the monthly rent roll in. I also prefer more of a "hands-off" approach and would like this to be as passive as possible (so does that mean commercial property may be more up my alley?), but I know that work will be required, especially at first. As I begin to develop a passive income stream, I would like to begin working less at my full-time job, and eventually transition fully into real estate investing, considering I am able to replace my current annual salary this way. So, here are some questions:

1. How feasible is this to do while also working a full-time job?

2. What kind of niche/strategy should I consider, given my goals? Right now I'm thinking commercial real estate (I've heard that, typically, leases are longer and sometimes the renter has very little responsibility as to the upkeep of the building, but have no idea if and/or how true this is).

3. I'm trying to wrap my mind around the financial benefits to this sort of strategy. Let's say I purchase a property/building for 100k and rent it for $600 monthly. It will take 13 years to completely pay off the house at this rate (assuming that the mortgage is also $600, with 0% interest) - do I only begin to profit after the property/building is paid off or what? In other words, how does one really get ahead that much if the majority of that rent is going right back into the mortgage each month?

4. Finally, given my goals and my complete lack of education, where is it recommended that I start? As stated above, I don't have any interest in buying and selling people's houses. I am, however, interested in buying a property and renting it, provided that it would be a profitable venture. I guess, however, I'm having some trouble defining what is profitable or understanding how it would be.