RE Investing - Not a good option right now

[Mike K.]

After looking at the opportunities available in RE investing and analyzing the risks and rewards I decided that there are better options available to build wealth.  It pains me to say this since I have been an appraiser for a long time.  In my 10 year time horizon until I retire I believe I can build more wealth as a small business owner and have decided to purchase a business.  I would like to personally thank everyone for sharing your experience and advice. Best of luck to you all.

[Becca F.]

Quote from @Mike K.:

Quote from @Chris John:

@Mike K.

I'm super curious as to what owning this website entails.  Can you give a brief rundown of the responsibilities - both short and long term?  Thanks

 I bought a blog website that has been operating for 2 years. It has 350 articles on the same topic. I run facebook ads and people click the ads and go to my website. My responsibilities are to manage the FB ad campaigns. There were a few non-performing ads that I turned off which has increased my profit margin. 

I'm running the same FB ads that the prior owner has been running for the last 2 years. I have not written any new blog posts yet. Heck, I still haven't read all of the existing articles on the website.

I was looking at a cat lovers blog that makes $4,000-$5,000/mo net income from social media traffic. Just couldn't do it because I'm a dog person and I hate cats. 

The nice thing about looking at online businesses is that when you express interest and sign the digital NDA owner gives you a P&L statement going back 24 months. Because it's digital all of the website traffic, income, and expenses are easy to verify during due diligence. I looked at probably about 50 different websites and analyzed their P&L statements and found a few good ones. 

There are several online marketplaces for purchasing digital businesses. Best one I found is Flippa.com. 

Websites sell at a multiple of net profit. If you buy a website and can increase the profit you are instantly increasing the value of the digital property.  The website I bought has over 100,000 visitors/mo and the profit is low for this amount of traffic. I have several strategies I'm gonna try to increase the profit.

I still feel that real estate is a great way to build wealth, especially those of us who bought pre-2013, but right now I'm looking for other ways to generate cash flow. 

 I may have to look into this. I would imagine the $4000 to $5000/mo net income is on the high end.  I could talk about my cat for hours lol

How much capital would someone would need to purchase a blog website? How much time do you spend doing this as in hours per week? 

[V.G Jason]

Quote from @Becca F.:

Quote from @Mike K.:

Quote from @Chris John:

@Mike K.

I'm super curious as to what owning this website entails.  Can you give a brief rundown of the responsibilities - both short and long term?  Thanks

 I bought a blog website that has been operating for 2 years. It has 350 articles on the same topic. I run facebook ads and people click the ads and go to my website. My responsibilities are to manage the FB ad campaigns. There were a few non-performing ads that I turned off which has increased my profit margin. 

I'm running the same FB ads that the prior owner has been running for the last 2 years. I have not written any new blog posts yet. Heck, I still haven't read all of the existing articles on the website.

I was looking at a cat lovers blog that makes $4,000-$5,000/mo net income from social media traffic. Just couldn't do it because I'm a dog person and I hate cats. 

The nice thing about looking at online businesses is that when you express interest and sign the digital NDA owner gives you a P&L statement going back 24 months. Because it's digital all of the website traffic, income, and expenses are easy to verify during due diligence. I looked at probably about 50 different websites and analyzed their P&L statements and found a few good ones. 

There are several online marketplaces for purchasing digital businesses. Best one I found is Flippa.com. 

Websites sell at a multiple of net profit. If you buy a website and can increase the profit you are instantly increasing the value of the digital property.  The website I bought has over 100,000 visitors/mo and the profit is low for this amount of traffic. I have several strategies I'm gonna try to increase the profit.

I still feel that real estate is a great way to build wealth, especially those of us who bought pre-2013, but right now I'm looking for other ways to generate cash flow. 

 I may have to look into this. I would imagine the $4000 to $5000/mo net income is on the high end.  I could talk about my cat for hours lol

How much capital would someone would need to purchase a blog website? How much time do you spend doing this as in hours per week? 

It's above average income, but he's got the skills to get traffic and the ad revenue associated with it. Do you? Just quick math Adsense for 10,000 visitors gets you around $450-500/mo. 10,000 visitors takes good content and some healthy traffic generation.

You'd have to pay someone to do that so deduct that from your net income. It's also very rocky income, this isn't linear.  It's the most susceptible and bottomless aspect of consumer discretionary income. So as the market wavers and falters, this craters. No guarantee on the run up, you capture extra momentum.

Best bet is the hard asset still. If you want cash flow, do some form of investing in 20-33% healthy equity portfolio that pays solid dividends like major funds(VOO, VTI vanilla stuff), another 20-30% in BDCs, debt funds, and private debt. You'll get like a net yield of 8-9%, less risk, and exposure to some growth in the equities. The equities side is actually a hedge; you're really 67%-80% betting on debt.  Or just be significantly less levered on real estate.

Right now there is easy money, it's telling you to NOT buy hard assets. It's giving you every incentive too, but in reality some of these hard assets are just getting even more scarce so it's worth the risk-on rate.

[Andrew Syrios]

It definitely is a difficult time to invest in real estate, although I don't think impossible. I still like house hacking in this market. Beats renting (at least in most places) by a lot. Other investments have major issues too right now. Crypto is always very volatile and as for stocks, well we're real close to a record for the Buffett indicator (stock market value / GDP) which along with some other indicators, makes me think it's likely overvalued. 

[John McKee]

@Mike K.. Congrats on your purchase!  Sounds like a codie Sanchez move!  What is your website?  Let's check it out and give you some traffic.

[Peter W.]

Quote from @Becca F.:

Quote from @Mike K.:

Quote from @Chris John:

@Mike K.

I'm super curious as to what owning this website entails.  Can you give a brief rundown of the responsibilities - both short and long term?  Thanks

 I bought a blog website that has been operating for 2 years. It has 350 articles on the same topic. I run facebook ads and people click the ads and go to my website. My responsibilities are to manage the FB ad campaigns. There were a few non-performing ads that I turned off which has increased my profit margin. 

I'm running the same FB ads that the prior owner has been running for the last 2 years. I have not written any new blog posts yet. Heck, I still haven't read all of the existing articles on the website.

I was looking at a cat lovers blog that makes $4,000-$5,000/mo net income from social media traffic. Just couldn't do it because I'm a dog person and I hate cats. 

The nice thing about looking at online businesses is that when you express interest and sign the digital NDA owner gives you a P&L statement going back 24 months. Because it's digital all of the website traffic, income, and expenses are easy to verify during due diligence. I looked at probably about 50 different websites and analyzed their P&L statements and found a few good ones. 

There are several online marketplaces for purchasing digital businesses. Best one I found is Flippa.com. 

Websites sell at a multiple of net profit. If you buy a website and can increase the profit you are instantly increasing the value of the digital property.  The website I bought has over 100,000 visitors/mo and the profit is low for this amount of traffic. I have several strategies I'm gonna try to increase the profit.

I still feel that real estate is a great way to build wealth, especially those of us who bought pre-2013, but right now I'm looking for other ways to generate cash flow. 

 I may have to look into this. I would imagine the $4000 to $5000/mo net income is on the high end.  I could talk about my cat for hours lol

How much capital would someone would need to purchase a blog website? How much time do you spend doing this as in hours per week? 

 Becca go check out Flippa. You tend to pay about 3x yearly profit (30% cap rate), although the individual deals vary greatly.

I am surprised this thread is so controversial. Businesses, (especially web based ones) have higher ROI than real estate. Businesses also require more work. Depending on the business the environment shifts far more rapidly than the housing market—especially online. However, in 30 years, your business is unlikely to be there but your property will still be there.

Edit: Mike thank you for sharing your story. I suspect my next purchase will be a web based business like yours, but I am probably a couple from saving enough money.

[Bruce Woodruff]

Quote from @Mike K.:

Not too many STRs in Columbus, OH.  There are only so many Buckeye games a year.

You may have a point.....I'm used to SoCal and Phx areas where there is more upside.

Anyway you made a good move it seems...of course you will miss out on some of the benefits of RE, but you have a fairly low maintenance model going there, it seems. (I may even look into it as I get older and get tired of running rentals.... :-)

[Becca F.]

Quote from @V.G Jason:

Quote from @Becca F.:

Quote from @Mike K.:

Quote from @Chris John:

@Mike K.

I'm super curious as to what owning this website entails.  Can you give a brief rundown of the responsibilities - both short and long term?  Thanks

 I bought a blog website that has been operating for 2 years. It has 350 articles on the same topic. I run facebook ads and people click the ads and go to my website. My responsibilities are to manage the FB ad campaigns. There were a few non-performing ads that I turned off which has increased my profit margin. 

I'm running the same FB ads that the prior owner has been running for the last 2 years. I have not written any new blog posts yet. Heck, I still haven't read all of the existing articles on the website.

I was looking at a cat lovers blog that makes $4,000-$5,000/mo net income from social media traffic. Just couldn't do it because I'm a dog person and I hate cats. 

The nice thing about looking at online businesses is that when you express interest and sign the digital NDA owner gives you a P&L statement going back 24 months. Because it's digital all of the website traffic, income, and expenses are easy to verify during due diligence. I looked at probably about 50 different websites and analyzed their P&L statements and found a few good ones. 

There are several online marketplaces for purchasing digital businesses. Best one I found is Flippa.com. 

Websites sell at a multiple of net profit. If you buy a website and can increase the profit you are instantly increasing the value of the digital property.  The website I bought has over 100,000 visitors/mo and the profit is low for this amount of traffic. I have several strategies I'm gonna try to increase the profit.

I still feel that real estate is a great way to build wealth, especially those of us who bought pre-2013, but right now I'm looking for other ways to generate cash flow. 

 I may have to look into this. I would imagine the $4000 to $5000/mo net income is on the high end.  I could talk about my cat for hours lol

How much capital would someone would need to purchase a blog website? How much time do you spend doing this as in hours per week? 

It's above average income, but he's got the skills to get traffic and the ad revenue associated with it. Do you? Just quick math Adsense for 10,000 visitors gets you around $450-500/mo. 10,000 visitors takes good content and some healthy traffic generation.

You'd have to pay someone to do that so deduct that from your net income. It's also very rocky income, this isn't linear.  It's the most susceptible and bottomless aspect of consumer discretionary income. So as the market wavers and falters, this craters. No guarantee on the run up, you capture extra momentum.

Best bet is the hard asset still. If you want cash flow, do some form of investing in 20-33% healthy equity portfolio that pays solid dividends like major funds(VOO, VTI vanilla stuff), another 20-30% in BDCs, debt funds, and private debt. You'll get like a net yield of 8-9%, less risk, and exposure to some growth in the equities. The equities side is actually a hedge; you're really 67%-80% betting on debt.  Or just be significantly less levered on real estate.

Right now there is easy money, it's telling you to NOT buy hard assets. It's giving you every incentive too, but in reality some of these hard assets are just getting even more scarce so it's worth the risk-on rate.

 I appreciate the feedback. It would be a huge learning curve to learn how to run ads and do blog websites. 

I've been buying major funds, your Vanguard and Fidelity stuff, although it's very tech stock heavy at the moment, started buying MLPs, will buy some BDCs. I haven't done debt funds or private debt. I'm not buying any more properties (unless I do a 1031 exchange, highly unlikely right now) so more new mortgages. 

[Carlos Ptriawan]

Quote from @Becca F.:

Quote from @V.G Jason:

Quote from @Becca F.:

Quote from @Mike K.:

Quote from @Chris John:

@Mike K.

I'm super curious as to what owning this website entails.  Can you give a brief rundown of the responsibilities - both short and long term?  Thanks

 I bought a blog website that has been operating for 2 years. It has 350 articles on the same topic. I run facebook ads and people click the ads and go to my website. My responsibilities are to manage the FB ad campaigns. There were a few non-performing ads that I turned off which has increased my profit margin. 

I'm running the same FB ads that the prior owner has been running for the last 2 years. I have not written any new blog posts yet. Heck, I still haven't read all of the existing articles on the website.

I was looking at a cat lovers blog that makes $4,000-$5,000/mo net income from social media traffic. Just couldn't do it because I'm a dog person and I hate cats. 

The nice thing about looking at online businesses is that when you express interest and sign the digital NDA owner gives you a P&L statement going back 24 months. Because it's digital all of the website traffic, income, and expenses are easy to verify during due diligence. I looked at probably about 50 different websites and analyzed their P&L statements and found a few good ones. 

There are several online marketplaces for purchasing digital businesses. Best one I found is Flippa.com. 

Websites sell at a multiple of net profit. If you buy a website and can increase the profit you are instantly increasing the value of the digital property.  The website I bought has over 100,000 visitors/mo and the profit is low for this amount of traffic. I have several strategies I'm gonna try to increase the profit.

I still feel that real estate is a great way to build wealth, especially those of us who bought pre-2013, but right now I'm looking for other ways to generate cash flow. 

 I may have to look into this. I would imagine the $4000 to $5000/mo net income is on the high end.  I could talk about my cat for hours lol

How much capital would someone would need to purchase a blog website? How much time do you spend doing this as in hours per week? 

It's above average income, but he's got the skills to get traffic and the ad revenue associated with it. Do you? Just quick math Adsense for 10,000 visitors gets you around $450-500/mo. 10,000 visitors takes good content and some healthy traffic generation.

You'd have to pay someone to do that so deduct that from your net income. It's also very rocky income, this isn't linear.  It's the most susceptible and bottomless aspect of consumer discretionary income. So as the market wavers and falters, this craters. No guarantee on the run up, you capture extra momentum.

Best bet is the hard asset still. If you want cash flow, do some form of investing in 20-33% healthy equity portfolio that pays solid dividends like major funds(VOO, VTI vanilla stuff), another 20-30% in BDCs, debt funds, and private debt. You'll get like a net yield of 8-9%, less risk, and exposure to some growth in the equities. The equities side is actually a hedge; you're really 67%-80% betting on debt.  Or just be significantly less levered on real estate.

Right now there is easy money, it's telling you to NOT buy hard assets. It's giving you every incentive too, but in reality some of these hard assets are just getting even more scarce so it's worth the risk-on rate.

 I appreciate the feedback. It would be a huge learning curve to learn how to run ads and do blog websites. 

I've been buying major funds, your Vanguard and Fidelity stuff, although it's very tech stock heavy at the moment, started buying MLPs, will buy some BDCs. I haven't done debt funds or private debt. I'm not buying any more properties (unless I do a 1031 exchange, highly unlikely right now) so more new mortgages. 

 wow Becca, lot of good stuffs.

Advice: don't invest too large to anything with "private" in the first word. 
Anything "public" is way way way way safer. Don't go to the darker path lol....

[Mike K.]

 above average income, but he's got the skills to get traffic and the ad revenue associated with it. Do you? Just quick math Adsense for 10,000 visitors gets you around $450-500/mo. 10,000 visitors takes good content and some healthy traffic generation.

You'd have to pay someone to do that so deduct that from your net income. It's also very rocky income, this isn't linear.  It's the most susceptible and bottomless aspect of consumer discretionary income. So as the market wavers and falters, this craters. No guarantee on the run up, you capture extra momentum.

Best bet is the hard asset still. If you want cash flow, do some form of investing in 20-33% healthy equity portfolio that pays solid dividends like major funds(VOO, VTI vanilla stuff), another 20-30% in BDCs, debt funds, and private debt. You'll get like a net yield of 8-9%, less risk, and exposure to some growth in the equities. The equities side is actually a hedge; you're really 67%-80% betting on debt.  Or just be significantly less levered on real estate.

Right now there is easy money, it's telling you to NOT buy hard assets. It's giving you every incentive too, but in reality some of these hard assets are just getting even more scarce so it's worth the risk-on rate.

I have no skills. Jumped into this figuring I could learn as I go.  Previous owner set up the FB ads and they have been running for 2 years. FB machine learning automagically optimizes the ads over time which increases the click through rate and lowers the cost per click. Currently making 50% plus on my ad spend. Since there is almost no traffic from Google search there is no "rocky Income".

I'm not paying anyone to do anything. Website is on wordpress which is a free open source platform. Web hosting is about $20/mo and I pay a same fee for the domain name once a year. Almost no costs.

No Adsense. Once you get to 50,000 visitors/month you qualify for better ad networks that pay at a much higher rate. 

Once again, not trying to put down RE as an investment vehicle, but with the inflated housing prices and higher interest rates the math just doesn't work.  Best of luck.

[Chris John]

@Mike K.

Good stuff.  Thanks for the response.  If nothing else, you've given me a rabbit hole to go down.  I'm with @John McKee.  I'd love to check out the site to get a better idea of what it is.  I'm struggling to think of ways that I could generate valuable content for when the existing content goes stale...

[V.G Jason]

Quote from @Mike K.:

 above average income, but he's got the skills to get traffic and the ad revenue associated with it. Do you? Just quick math Adsense for 10,000 visitors gets you around $450-500/mo. 10,000 visitors takes good content and some healthy traffic generation.

You'd have to pay someone to do that so deduct that from your net income. It's also very rocky income, this isn't linear.  It's the most susceptible and bottomless aspect of consumer discretionary income. So as the market wavers and falters, this craters. No guarantee on the run up, you capture extra momentum.

Best bet is the hard asset still. If you want cash flow, do some form of investing in 20-33% healthy equity portfolio that pays solid dividends like major funds(VOO, VTI vanilla stuff), another 20-30% in BDCs, debt funds, and private debt. You'll get like a net yield of 8-9%, less risk, and exposure to some growth in the equities. The equities side is actually a hedge; you're really 67%-80% betting on debt.  Or just be significantly less levered on real estate.

Right now there is easy money, it's telling you to NOT buy hard assets. It's giving you every incentive too, but in reality some of these hard assets are just getting even more scarce so it's worth the risk-on rate.

I have no skills. Jumped into this figuring I could learn as I go.  Previous owner set up the FB ads and they have been running for 2 years. FB machine learning automagically optimizes the ads over time which increases the click through rate and lowers the cost per click. Currently making 50% plus on my ad spend. Since there is almost no traffic from Google search there is no "rocky Income".

I'm not paying anyone to do anything. Website is on wordpress which is a free open source platform. Web hosting is about $20/mo and I pay a same fee for the domain name once a year. Almost no costs.

No Adsense. Once you get to 50,000 visitors/month you qualify for better ad networks that pay at a much higher rate. 

Once again, not trying to put down RE as an investment vehicle, but with the inflated housing prices and higher interest rates the math just doesn't work.  Best of luck.

Even with that, income is less linear and it's fundamentally not backed by the hard asset. Exit options are even more limited. It's just not the better route overall, but a better route for some.

Going to be a hard comparison to real estate. I understand the high rates, high price argument and that's correct but not all houses need to be assumed at high prices or high rates. And not all real estate is bought as is, with the tangible value simply associated and located as is. If that's how you are entering the RE market, it's a rougher course.

[V.G Jason]

Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:

Quote from @Becca F.:

Quote from @V.G Jason:

Quote from @Becca F.:

Quote from @Mike K.:

Quote from @Chris John:

@Mike K.

I'm super curious as to what owning this website entails.  Can you give a brief rundown of the responsibilities - both short and long term?  Thanks

 I bought a blog website that has been operating for 2 years. It has 350 articles on the same topic. I run facebook ads and people click the ads and go to my website. My responsibilities are to manage the FB ad campaigns. There were a few non-performing ads that I turned off which has increased my profit margin. 

I'm running the same FB ads that the prior owner has been running for the last 2 years. I have not written any new blog posts yet. Heck, I still haven't read all of the existing articles on the website.

I was looking at a cat lovers blog that makes $4,000-$5,000/mo net income from social media traffic. Just couldn't do it because I'm a dog person and I hate cats. 

The nice thing about looking at online businesses is that when you express interest and sign the digital NDA owner gives you a P&L statement going back 24 months. Because it's digital all of the website traffic, income, and expenses are easy to verify during due diligence. I looked at probably about 50 different websites and analyzed their P&L statements and found a few good ones. 

There are several online marketplaces for purchasing digital businesses. Best one I found is Flippa.com. 

Websites sell at a multiple of net profit. If you buy a website and can increase the profit you are instantly increasing the value of the digital property.  The website I bought has over 100,000 visitors/mo and the profit is low for this amount of traffic. I have several strategies I'm gonna try to increase the profit.

I still feel that real estate is a great way to build wealth, especially those of us who bought pre-2013, but right now I'm looking for other ways to generate cash flow. 

 I may have to look into this. I would imagine the $4000 to $5000/mo net income is on the high end.  I could talk about my cat for hours lol

How much capital would someone would need to purchase a blog website? How much time do you spend doing this as in hours per week? 

It's above average income, but he's got the skills to get traffic and the ad revenue associated with it. Do you? Just quick math Adsense for 10,000 visitors gets you around $450-500/mo. 10,000 visitors takes good content and some healthy traffic generation.

You'd have to pay someone to do that so deduct that from your net income. It's also very rocky income, this isn't linear.  It's the most susceptible and bottomless aspect of consumer discretionary income. So as the market wavers and falters, this craters. No guarantee on the run up, you capture extra momentum.

Best bet is the hard asset still. If you want cash flow, do some form of investing in 20-33% healthy equity portfolio that pays solid dividends like major funds(VOO, VTI vanilla stuff), another 20-30% in BDCs, debt funds, and private debt. You'll get like a net yield of 8-9%, less risk, and exposure to some growth in the equities. The equities side is actually a hedge; you're really 67%-80% betting on debt.  Or just be significantly less levered on real estate.

Right now there is easy money, it's telling you to NOT buy hard assets. It's giving you every incentive too, but in reality some of these hard assets are just getting even more scarce so it's worth the risk-on rate.

 I appreciate the feedback. It would be a huge learning curve to learn how to run ads and do blog websites. 

I've been buying major funds, your Vanguard and Fidelity stuff, although it's very tech stock heavy at the moment, started buying MLPs, will buy some BDCs. I haven't done debt funds or private debt. I'm not buying any more properties (unless I do a 1031 exchange, highly unlikely right now) so more new mortgages. 

 wow Becca, lot of good stuffs.

Advice: don't invest too large to anything with "private" in the first word. 
Anything "public" is way way way way safer. Don't go to the darker path lol....

 If you want to play it safe. Go 20-30% equities.

Then 50% govt debt, 20-30% BDCs-- no funds or anything, as you want capital as quick as hitting sell. Rotate out of BDCs to Govt debt as tightening lingers, and rotate from govt debt to equities as fiscal policy loosens. Just got to be patient with it all, it's not rocket science but the patience aspect is the toughest for most.

[Grant Tyler Short]

Quote from @Mike K.:

 above average income, but he's got the skills to get traffic and the ad revenue associated with it. Do you? Just quick math Adsense for 10,000 visitors gets you around $450-500/mo. 10,000 visitors takes good content and some healthy traffic generation.

You'd have to pay someone to do that so deduct that from your net income. It's also very rocky income, this isn't linear.  It's the most susceptible and bottomless aspect of consumer discretionary income. So as the market wavers and falters, this craters. No guarantee on the run up, you capture extra momentum.

Best bet is the hard asset still. If you want cash flow, do some form of investing in 20-33% healthy equity portfolio that pays solid dividends like major funds(VOO, VTI vanilla stuff), another 20-30% in BDCs, debt funds, and private debt. You'll get like a net yield of 8-9%, less risk, and exposure to some growth in the equities. The equities side is actually a hedge; you're really 67%-80% betting on debt.  Or just be significantly less levered on real estate.

Right now there is easy money, it's telling you to NOT buy hard assets. It's giving you every incentive too, but in reality some of these hard assets are just getting even more scarce so it's worth the risk-on rate.

I have no skills. Jumped into this figuring I could learn as I go.  Previous owner set up the FB ads and they have been running for 2 years. FB machine learning automagically optimizes the ads over time which increases the click through rate and lowers the cost per click. Currently making 50% plus on my ad spend. Since there is almost no traffic from Google search there is no "rocky Income".

I'm not paying anyone to do anything. Website is on wordpress which is a free open source platform. Web hosting is about $20/mo and I pay a same fee for the domain name once a year. Almost no costs.

No Adsense. Once you get to 50,000 visitors/month you qualify for better ad networks that pay at a much higher rate. 

Once again, not trying to put down RE as an investment vehicle, but with the inflated housing prices and higher interest rates the math just doesn't work.  Best of luck.

 Hmm, I am so glad that you brought this up. I am a pharmacist by trade but have an ecommerce S-corp side business doing ~$500K gross sales per year, along with a YT channel. The e-commerce platform gives me ~45,000 views (over 1M impressions per month), the YT channel is smaller, ~20,000-30,000 views depending on how much content I push, but the thought of turning that into a blog has always been in the back of my mind. Lots of views that likely would carry over to a blog. Seeing these traffic numbers is motivating. Thank you for sharing!

[Bob Stevens]

Quote from @Mike K.:

After looking at the opportunities available in RE investing and analyzing the risks and rewards I decided that there are better options available to build wealth.  It pains me to say this since I have been an appraiser for a long time.  In my 10 year time horizon until I retire I believe I can build more wealth as a small business owner and have decided to purchase a business.  I would like to personally thank everyone for sharing your experience and advice. Best of luck to you all.

 Good luck however you are 100% incorrect, 

[Mike K.]

Quote from @Bob Stevens:

Quote from @Mike K.:

After looking at the opportunities available in RE investing and analyzing the risks and rewards I decided that there are better options available to build wealth.  It pains me to say this since I have been an appraiser for a long time.  In my 10 year time horizon until I retire I believe I can build more wealth as a small business owner and have decided to purchase a business.  I would like to personally thank everyone for sharing your experience and advice. Best of luck to you all.

 Good luck however you are 100% incorrect, 

 You're opinion is just as valid as mine.  Whatever works for you.  I'm sure you have investment properties that earn $1,000 net profit per week...

[Lisa Rechsteiner]

Quote from @John Morgan:

It's not easy now but I'm still finding deals. I've bought 10 SFR buy n holds in the last 12 month that cash flow ok. I'm more of a dollar cost average investor and have bought on average 2 houses a year for the past 9 years. But I've found some of my best deals in the last 4 or 5 months so I jumped on them. I look 5-10 years in the future to see if I think my investments will be good so I'm ok only making $200-$500/month when I first buy properties. And many investors have paused their buying so I'm seeing less competition and able to make low ball offers to secure these homes.

Where are you finding these deals, John. We are in TN. I’ve heard a lot of positive things about Columbus OH

[Timothy Hero]

Real estate offers a more likelihood to achieve wealth compared to anything else. However, in today's world, there's many ways to make a million in 24 months, and unless you come across a unicorn of a flip or you already have millions to play with, it won't come from RE.

It depends on what you're going for. If you're 60 and wanting to retire at 65 and own zero rentals, it'll be tough to achieve in RE in 5 years.

[Peter W.]

It's not like it either or. Typically we want to take gains from risky/labor intensive/short term investments and roll them into long term/stable/more passive investments. Then you want to take the cash from the stabler assets and roll that back into another high ROI method.

The classic example here is the brrrr method where you combine the very active and more difficult flip with the gains rolled into a more stable rental property.

Thank you everyone for participating on this thread it’s been one of the better threads here lately. 🙏 

[Bob Stevens]

Quote from @Mike K.:

Quote from @Bob Stevens:

Quote from @Mike K.:

After looking at the opportunities available in RE investing and analyzing the risks and rewards I decided that there are better options available to build wealth.  It pains me to say this since I have been an appraiser for a long time.  In my 10 year time horizon until I retire I believe I can build more wealth as a small business owner and have decided to purchase a business.  I would like to personally thank everyone for sharing your experience and advice. Best of luck to you all.

 Good luck however you are 100% incorrect, 

 You're opinion is just as valid as mine.  Whatever works for you.  I'm sure you have investment properties that earn $1,000 net profit per week...

 Actually the 81-unit nets about 280k per year on about 500k gross for the last 7 years, Overall, about 25% net on top of the more than triple the price. My 7 unit is about 3300 a month net (about 20% net )  so a bit shy of the 1k per week, but hey I'm on the beach in FL while my props in Cleveland support my life :) I wish you all the best in your endeavors Rock on!   

[Bob Stevens]

Quote from @Mike K.:

Quote from @Henry Clark:

OP you joined BP in February.  Asked the beginner questions of how and where to invest.  You’re an appraiser.  You live in Ohio where for whatever reason people want to invest from out of state.  Now you have decided a small business is the best way to go.  

I tell people to Start small and Make Your Big Mistakes Early.  

No matter what endeavor a person takes you have to get your failures out of the way.  

Good luck in your endeavor.  Right now is the best time to ever be in Real Estate though.  

 I disagree.  The best time to buy real estate is when everyone is selling and there is an oversupply of properties available for the buyer demand. Right now it's clear that there is a significant undersupply of available properties to meet investor buyer demand. Too many real estate agents enticing out of state buyers to invest in Ohio. 

 Its ALL about your team and knowledge. All of my personal rentals have never been less then 15% NET per year (based on cash purchase) most avg over 20%. This is on top of the triple or more in pricing over the last 10 years. I just closed last week, my all-in price will be about 75k, with a value of about 125k. Rent will be 1600, Net income about 15k. 20% , Not so bad :) This is basically what all my SF look like. MF have similar nets.  

All the best to you 

BTW, I have a lot of free time and always interested in opportunities. Share what online biz your referring to. 

[Bobby Noubiap]

@Mike K. Good post, bottom line for me is not to put all eggs in one basket and keep on diversifying whether it is in REI, stocks, crypto and small business... We do what makes us happy since we all on a different journey!

[Tyler Y.]

Quote from @Henry Clark:

OP you joined BP in February.  Asked the beginner questions of how and where to invest.  You’re an appraiser.  You live in Ohio where for whatever reason people want to invest from out of state.  Now you have decided a small business is the best way to go.  

I tell people to Start small and Make Your Big Mistakes Early.  

No matter what endeavor a person takes you have to get your failures out of the way.  

Good luck in your endeavor.  Right now is the best time to ever be in Real Estate though.  

 If everyone went step by step though each thing before doing the next thing, nobody would every do anything. Example: first you have to try stocks, then you have to learn real estate, then you try a small business, then a medium sized business, then a big business... No, it doesn't work that way in real life. You only live 80 years or more if you are lucky. If you want to start a big business, start building a big business. It's going to take a long time. 

[Nate Marshall]

It is never a bad time to invest in real estate. The issue is with people that don't have the ability to analyze, structure and underwrite opportunities so they close on time and become successful acquisitions! 

[Bob Stevens]

Quote from @Nate Marshall:

It is never a bad time to invest in real estate. The issue is with people that don't have the ability to analyze, structure and underwrite opportunities so they close on time and become successful acquisitions! 

 It takes 10 min to analyze in a market you never purchased in. I purchased 2 duplex in my 1st few hours I visited the city, 10 or so years ago. In the market you work in it take 30 seconds :) 

[Justin Brickman]

Quote from @Mike K.:

After looking at the opportunities available in RE investing and analyzing the risks and rewards I decided that there are better options available to build wealth.  It pains me to say this since I have been an appraiser for a long time.  In my 10 year time horizon until I retire I believe I can build more wealth as a small business owner and have decided to purchase a business.  I would like to personally thank everyone for sharing your experience and advice. Best of luck to you all.

You won't always find great deals, but you can make great deals in this market.