$200,000 at 21, should I buy rentals in cash?

[Nicholas Daniels]

I'm thinking about buying rental properties and was curious if putting 100% down would make sense in my case. I'm 21 about to graduate college (thank god). I have no debt, and I have ~$200,000 saved up. I don't really want to fix things or do any physical work. I'd much rather just buy a property in cash and then have a manager do all/99% of the work. I can live at home once I graduate and stack up more cash and focus the cash flow of the first property on the second until it's paid off, then continue to do that until I have ~4. 

I'm pretty confident I could have 8-10 paid off properties by 30. If they cashflow $1250 each (after all expenses, property management (10%), repairs ($250/mo), maintenance (5%), vacancy (7%), etc. That's a pretty common return on $200,000 where I'm at (midwest). 

The thing is, if I'm netting $1250/month that's a 7.5% return on $200,000. That's not bad for paying cash (I think)? I'm sure one could make the argument I should leverage and get a higher return, but I don't really care about getting every little %. 

My goal is $10,000/monthly passive income meaning I need 8 properties that fit this metric. Would it make sense for me to buy them in cash? I'm not interested in growing my net worth to the absolute extreme (although I predict my strategy of buying with cash will let me capture huge opportunities where people who are leveraged will miss out on or go under). 

Thoughts? 

[Patrick Pierre]

I think you have a great mindset at that age and however you proceed you will succeed. Personally what I would do with that money at that age in your market is to use half of it to invest in a property, then put the other half in a mutual fund, then maybe in a year or so use the returns from the mutual fund and repeat with another property.