1st Post - When/how to step away from your day job

[Jeremy Kuchenbecker]

I've been on biggerpockets for over a year and this is my first post/question: How do you step away from your normal day job and start investing full time? I know this is a very, very vague question that varies from person to person, but for the people who have made the transition into a full time investor, at what point were you able to do it?

Background - I'm 26 and currently have a SFH, Duplex, and Townhouse all at about 70-75% LTV with a net cashflow of 1500/month. I run my personal finances like a business and am generally pretty frugal and although I make over 6 figures at my job now, I am not concerned about investing full time and netting out less income to start.

I've thought about flipping a house or two or three, picking up some extra cash and getting into a larger multi family, and repeat until I have consistent income to support my 'business'....

Once you are out of a W2 job, what income do you show to continue investing in non commercial property? Any advice is much appreciated!

Jeremy

[Brie Schmidt]

@Jeremy Kuchenbecker - I personally feel that nobody should leave their W-2 until they are either A. done growing or B. have enough REI income to continue to grow.

From a residential lending perspective, you need to have the income on your tax returns for 2 years to count it.  So if you are doing buy and hold, it is the income on your schedule E and if you are flipping, it is the income on your schedule C. 

So if you are looking to flip for income to put into your buy and hold, I would try and do it for 2 full years before considering to leave.  Getting financing and being self employed is a much more of a mess than doing it while having a W-2