401k loan to begin real estate investing

[Matthew Krickeberg]

My wife and I have recently committed ourselves to taking the plunge into real estate investing, focusing on buy and hold rental units with the goal of generating monthly cash flow (flipping, hacking, wholesaling not an interest... right now). In preparation for this move we have taken a financial audit of our circumstances and see that our 401k (I have the only account now, just shy of $100k @ 40 and my wife has just begun to contribute to her own this year at 33) will not get us where we want to be in 25-30 years. Are we better off leveraging these funds to start our real estate venture immediately on a solid footing, assuming that in the long run (10, 15, 25 years) we will be able to compound and leverage our gains to build wealth far faster than we would waiting 5 years to save for an adequate down payment for our first property? 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Jannah M.]

@Matthew Krickeberg, this is exactly what I did in 2013.  I stilled owned the first house I ever purchased and hadn't save up funds for another down payment but I saw a deal I wanted and saw that my market (Oakland, California) was on the up and up.  

So, I got a 5% conventional loan through the amazing mortgage broker I now always work with and took a withdrawal and took the awful penalty (not a loan, because due to prior loans the available loan funds wasn't going to be enough).  I didn't even have money to pay the penalty, so I put it on my credit card when tax season came.  The condo was purchased for $320k and now is worth $575-$600k.  Well worth the risk, and I made much more than I would have allowing that money to sit in my 401k.