Full time or part time ?

Question

Hey everyone ! I have been doing a lot of research , attending webinars and reading books. I am just curious, when you were starting out , did you have another full time job or do you think this Is something you need to dedicate full time ? Obviously this varies but as a full time employee I am having difficulty getting myself starting in fear of totally overwhelming myself.

I guess here is my story. I am a full time special education teacher. I own my own home, hopefully my forever home. I realize that I want more in life than a teacher salary can offer. I have some money saved but not enough for a downpayment on a rental and honestly saving is slow going even when being very stingy. I've been looking into flipping and wholesaling which seem to be possible with less cash on hand. Has anyone used partners to start out?

Share any thoughts or stories of your own. Thanks!

John Morgan · Answer

@Ashley Sliwa

I would keep working full time. Wait until you have several properties under your belt. I started investing in SFRs only four years ago and far from quitting my W2 job. I’m only bringing in around $2,900/month after all my expenses on my six properties. Definitely not enough to quit my job, but not bad side income. Real estate is very competitive and all the guros our there make it sound so easy to get rich off it. Everyone seems to be getting into this. Maybe you can quit and do this full time right away, but for most of us it takes a few years to be able to make decent money. Good luck on your adventure! You’ll love investing in real estate.

Jeff Adams · Answer

Hi @Ashley Sliwa,

I think this a great question that varies for everyone based on their goals, but personally, I've found it much easier to do investing part time and supplement my income and down payments with my W2 job. My wife actually became a real estate salesperson recently, on top of her W2 income to further supplement our income. Our plan right now is for both of us to take that and investing full time so we can have more control over our lives while we work on our investment strategy.

Personally, our biggest motivator is to work for ourselves rather than not work at all or work part time, so that may be different than your goals. If you are interested in supplementing your income at any point with your current skills, we have a friend who is a certified special education teacher and she has mentioned that she could conduct testing in her home to properly place special needs students and make quite a bit of money doing that, so that could be an option for you. If you'd like, you could DM me and I can find out more information about that for you.

Best of luck!

Patrick Soukup · Answer

@Ashley Sliwa great question. I’m a big fan of doing it part time on the side until you get things rolling as a couple of others said. Your question as to wholesaling part time, no way. Well maybe, depending on your market, but wholesaling takes a lot of time and learning to do well. Flipping houses with a partner depending on your market and what value you bring to the partnership may be the way to go. Your first flip, can make or break you. Going in with a partner who is experienced is a great way to shorten the learning curve. You won’t make as much, but you chances of success are much greater. Working as a special educator allows you to have your summers free, this is when you turn your $40k/year salary into $60-$80k/year with your side hustles. Keep asking questions, learning and gaining knowledge. Good luck!

Kevin McGuire · Answer

@Ashley Sliwa You can definitely do it part time. Like you my goal is future passive income. I have a busy full time high tech job, own seven properties and am buying a fourplex. Oh and they’re all remote. You need to approach it as a job though and build a team of real estate agent and property manager. I personally believe the latter is critical; if you self manage you take on the risk of those events (stopped toilet, whatever) disrupting your life. PM me if you want to chat more.

Simon Terrazas Jr. · Answer

@Ashley Sliwa

Your story is very similar to many of us on BP.  1st of all, I think the safety of a full-time W2 job, especially such an important one, is invaluable.  A teacher's schedule would work ideally for a rei.  You can do tons of learning/footwork/networking after you get home from school and on the weekends.  (Not to mention summers!). How much time u put in during those times will be wholly up to how tenacious and persistent you are in getting started.  I have a couple questions:

1.  Is your forever home paid off?  If not, how much equity?  If it's paid off or u have a ton of equity, you can pull out a home equity line of credit and possibly have enough for a down payment on 1 or more houses to rent out.   They are typically low interest, but being willing to do this or not will let you know just how badly you want to start real estate investing.

2.  Do you have any leads on possible partners?  Personal friends and/or family, or someone else?

You say you want to set yourself up for passive income, so I'm assuming you'd like to flip or wholesale to build up your capital to fund buy and hold?

And where are you looking for the real estate?  What kind of market is there?  Have you looked into contractors?

Grant Rothenburger · Answer

@Ashley Sliwa You could try investing passively in the sites that do as little as $500 starting investment.

Taylor Chiu · Answer

@Ashley Sliwa

Hi there, I would go part time at first. That way you keep your W2 for loan qualification, and have a baseline source of income that can keep you from getting desperate and making mistakes with your investing.

That said, there are plenty of stories of investors who drop everything else at the start and make it work. Seems like an unnecessary risk for most though. Especially to my wife, haha!

Good luck with everything!

Daniel Townsend · Answer

@Ashley Sliwa

You could always try to find a private investor? That way you could work a deal for getting them a percentage you you can start getting rental income?

Jairo Paredes · Answer

Hello everyone,

I had a full-time job when I first started investing. Needed a way to support my family and fund my projects. Was also made it easier to secure a loan.

I am now a full-time investor. This was not an overnight thing but I’m glad that I am doing it this way. The big difference is I don’t have that weekly check from work. So this motivates me to look for leads and finish projects within budget and on time.

Ashley Sliwa · Answer

Patrick Thank you for the encouragement. I plan to spend a lot of time this summer working towards this goal!

Full time or part time ?

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