Looking for advice on EXPERIENCE

[Kamran Javadi]

Hi Everyone!

Long time lurker, first time posting.

I’m 29 and my wife and I have a household income of around 200k. Our plan is to pay off our student loans then save up for an investment property. Currently the plan is to save 100k/year with the intent of purchasing an apartment building in approximately 10 years. I am undecided if this will be through a syndication or if I would want to purchase the property outright. Either way I need experience in RE before executing such a large deal, so I want to start dipping my feet into real estate during the 10-year interim and learn as much as possible.

My question is what are some RE investment opportunities that will 1) provide experience that will be beneficial towards my goal of owning an apartment complex, and 2) keep my investment liquid enough to cash out when the time comes for the big purchase.

As I currently have zero real world real estate experience, I figure just about any area would benefit me, however I would imagine there are other avenues besides S/MFH. I would like to find something with modest risk/reward as not losing my cash is more important than a substantial ROI. I am in Western Montana.

I would love to hear advice any of you have to share - thank you for reading this!

[Aaron K.]

It is nice to have a long term goal but I think you're looking at it the wrong way, an apartment complex isn't a magic bullet, you don't know where you'll be ten years from now and it is probably much more important to make investments over the 10 years than to work towards that single goal.  Also you don't have control over who is selling what and when, so the best advice is to start investing in something and remain somewhat flexible in what you're looking for.