My real estate investment moving forward

[Ashley Dennis]

I am hungry to get started with my real estate investing. I have another 12 years approx to retirement. I have one rental home so far.

I would like to first invest in a single family home in one of the best areas of Orlando to rent out and possibly occupy it on retirement. This home will not be positive cash flowing. Is that a smart thing to do? If I wait to buy in 12 years, properties will have appreciated significantly. So I can put down 20% of my own funds on this home and rent it out.

In parallel, I have attended a 3 day training class last weekend but there is so much pressure to sign up for their packages on financial education and access to a mentor. Is it worthwhile going in this direction to establish a significant amount of passive income? Also they are talking of using OPM for funding these deals. So, if I can learn how to do the deals with using OPM, is it advisable to invest in the education by buying the package?

Thanks.

[Jason L.]

Don't pay gurus. They're not helping you with your retirement; you're helping them with theirs.

If you're 100% confident that you could lose less money in 12 years of renting a house than you project the market to appreciate (and you're 100% deadset on Orlando), then I mean I guess you could do that. Consider the alternative though. What happens if the market turns the other way? Now you're underwater on your mortgage and you're losing money on the rental to boot. Does potential foreclosure sounds more appealing than trying to frontrun an appreciating market?

Best bet seems to be to find a shelter for your retirement money that's actually going to make you more money, even if that's not Orlando. Then in like 10 years when you're much closer to your retirement timeline, you could try to make a safer bet with more information instead of trying to prognosticate the real estate market 12 years into the future.