100k siting in bank. Considering real estate

[Aaron Carroll]

My wife and i are young dentists. In general we are very conservative. We make a nice combined income and after paying off our school loans and saving for retirement we have amassed a little over 100k in savings. For a whole i have considered venturing into commercial and or residential real estate as investment vehicle and to diversify my portfolio. Most recently i am working with a residential realtor and considerig a single family rental house of under 100k(i would only put 20% down). My wife thinks i am crazy. She tellls me that i alreay work hard enough. Why put more on my plate that is going to return relatively little, she says. I inderstand where she is coming from but I have an itch to invest. What do people think?

[Albert Hasson]

Aaron, I am an anesthesiologist and have been investing in RE for 12 years. It does add stress/complexity to your daily routine. I do it because I love it (I have the itch too). It is very important to have the support of your spouse, if she is against it you are in for a rough ride. Single family, especially when you have several, can be very time consuming. You might look into triple net commercial which is as close as you can get to stress free real estate investing.