Hi Everyone, I’m seeking advice on how to get started in real estate investing with a decent amount of liquid funds available to deploy—roughly up to $750K. Currently, I’m working in the corporate world but looking to transition into real estate as my next venture. My ultimate goal is to use this capital to generate enough cash flow to focus on real estate full-time. While I’m not in a rush, I aim to strategically invest and grow a portfolio over the next 3–5 years to make a smooth exit from the corporate grind, as reporting to an office daily has left me feeling burnt out. What strategies would you recommend? Should I consider: • • Purchasing rental properties? (Best regions/areas for returns?) • Flipping homes? • Acquiring pre-existing rental portfolios? • Investing in mobile home parks? • Using leverage to scale, such as borrowing against this cash for larger down payments? • Employing the BRRRR ? • Targeting Section 8 housing? • • Purchasing rental properties? (Best regions/areas for returns?) • Flipping homes? • Acquiring pre-existing rental portfolios? • Investing in mobile home parks? • Using leverage to scale, such as borrowing against this cash for larger down payments? • Employing the BRRRR ? • Targeting Section 8 housing? I’m open to ideas and keen to hear what approaches have worked well for others who’ve found success in real estate. Any tips, strategies, or insights would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance to everyone who shares their thoughts.

@Greg P. There are a lot of unknowns in your proposition. The first one that comes to mind is do you plan to keep working while building your real estate empire? And how much money are you making in your current job that you would want to replace with your real estate income? Those are probably the biggest questions someone needs to know to determine the feasibility of your ask. Also - what part of the country do you live in... California where expenses are really high, versus like Ohio (etc), where expenses are really low. Using leverage is always going to make your buying power go further. So yes to that one. Flipping / BRRRR comes with a lot of work required... who is going to do that work? If it's not you - you are going to be paying contractors (most likely) retail repair rates - and with the prices of housing (even dilapidated housing) pretty high right now - I would say that flipping is not the easiest "in" to the market. Flipping remotely is even a worse idea - you have no control over the scene and will likely be exploited because of it. Flipping comes with a pretty large learning curve. Simple mistakes can be very costly. As an example, we decided to replace the windows in a house we were renovating and ended up costing us $50,000 extra because we got into issues with permitting and suddenly found ourselves having to hire an architect, speciality contractors, etc. We had to remove the windows we had already installed in a 1925 house and reframe the openings to bring them to 2023 building code. Major nightmare! So just know that you don't know what you don't know... and with flips - that can get expensive really quick! (Had we rebuilt the original windows we would have been fine and wouldn't have had to bring them to current code.) LESSON LEARNED! Rental properties come in several flavors... short term, long term, etc. Short term will make you more money, but require a lot more management (new tenant every 3 days, turn over, cleaning, etc). Long term tenants are much easier. Turn over is usually measured in years. I'm not a fan of mobile home parks. They do not appreciate like actual real estate and your caliber of tenant can be lower which can bring with it its own problems. Rental portfolios would be a quicker way in - as you could possibly buy numerous properties in one transaction. Like the saying goes - much is about location, location, location. In the midwest, prices are lower. Rentals boil down to how much do you net after paying principle, interest, taxes, insurance, and a maintenance reserve. In todays market $300/door / month is probably a pretty good net if you can even find that (at least where I live in Florida.) Depending on where you buy, you would want to take the average priced house and figure you have to put 20% down to buy it with financing. From there you divide that down payment into $750,000 (your nest egg) and it will tell you how many rentals you could possibly finance. You then multiply that by your anticipated net profit per month per rental to determine a monthly income and see if you can live on that. That will start to tell you if rentals are a feasible option for you. (Keep in mind there are Fannie Mae maximums on the number of personal loans you can have - which is 10 per person. If you are married - put each one in a single name and you can then have 20 - there are higher qualifications the more you have though. If you go with commercial financing you can put them in LLC names and you won't have those restrictions - but will have crappier financing terms - like 5 year locks instead of 30 year.) We bought 12 houses in 2018, 10 in 2019, and 9 in 2020 before prices went skyrocketing. (We switched to commercial financing when we ran out of loan slots with Fannie Mae.) Once we got to about 20 rentals we quit our full time corporate jobs and now manage our rentals full time. Since 2018 the value of our portfolio has probably tripled! Can't beat that part - but it likely won't come back around anytime soon. Realize that today you are looking to buy into the real estate market towards its recent peak. Not that prices will likely decline anytime soon - but it's much harder today to find value like a few years ago. Areas like Ohio seem to be mentioned quite a bit on the message boards for better affordability. We haven't bought anything in the past couple of years locally because the value proposition compared to what we already own just isn't there. (That's not to say you can't find cash flow - it's just much more difficult in today's market). Hope it helps! Randy

If you are saying you want to be making 350k a year from real estate before you leave your job, you have a LONG way to go and aren't thinking of it the right way right now. It's not realistic the way you laid it out. It seems like someone told you real estate investing is a good idea, but you haven't done any research much on your own yet. I say this because your opening post was like walking up to a buffet and asking the chef if you should have pizza, sushi, ice cream, scallion pancake, spare ribs, or peanut butter and jelly. The chef can't answer that question. Turnkey rentals, one by one, would take you about 30 years to get to 350k in income. The average turnkey rental make about $300/month. From what you said, using real estate as a side vehicle with your good salary and earnings is a good start, as well as investing in core things like index funds. And when you go to an open forum and say, hey I have 750k to burn, you are inviting every guru and charlatan to pitch you a course or a way of doing things so you are opening yourself up to all the junk.

@Greg P. assuming your post is real... i'm with @Jonathan Greene in that i don't know enough about you to even try to help. so i'll throw out my standard cold water. -flips and BRRRRs are very time consuming, energy intensive, and hands-on. and they're difficult to do, because you're up against businesses that do nothing but flip and BRRRR, and here you come along wanting to do 1 home run right out of the gate. that's REALLY difficult! it will take a lot of work to build a network to get viable deals to come to you. and if you're busy with your full time job it's even harder. -interest rates AND prices are high right now, which have REALLY hurt cash flow. real estate is still a great investment - here we all are! - but the 'cash flow' you will have in just 3 years even after purchasing several properties will.... not really amount to anything. it's after 5-10 years that things really start to stabilize. you fixed everything the previous owner neglected, you have good tenants, your rents have gone up, etc. for example, my cash flow ranges from: $0 a month on my class A property, to $300 on a single family that I BRRRR'd and have a 4.5% interest rate on. it's a good portfolio. i worked hard to build it. but i can't retire on it. -mobile home parks and Section 8: ...maybe? is that what you want to do? -i wouldn't give up on Florida just because the midwest looks cheaper. you lose all ability to be hands on and add value. so... i'd start in Florida. buy 1 rental. see what you think. don't worry about when you hit 21. hope that helps

Buy 2-3 quality rentals with a 1.25 DSCR. Buy the same amount(in regards to downpayment allocations) in debt notes. Every year do the same, 1-2 properties + 1-2 notes. Can change up rental style; maybe some STR, maybe some LTR. Pick 2-4 locations, get no more than about 6 deep in any but no less than 2 deep. Prioritize quality locations. Keep healthy amount of reserves per property, hire a PM, and hire a tax friendly CPA(not planning just prep). Around year 7 or 8, ideally year 10, re-assess your equity and maturation of those debt notes and re-adjust how you invest to suit your needs.

one way i know to replace 350k a year with 750k is to build new construction and sell it. we pretty much double our money COC with new builds within 12 months. So you pay cash for the lot get a construction loan and the hard part is going to be a GC you know and trust.. sell the house double your cash on cash or better.. pay your tax and keep going. Or invest with a developer and do value add by creating building lots those are easy to 2X or better more risk though. I have 3 of those going right now in Loudoun county VA just outside of WA DC my deal with that developer is 100% return per annum.. First one we did closes in Feb and is sold to Toll Brothers.. WE put up 400k and will get 400k back as a return my client is going to make a few million. Life changing for him. Nice hit for us and we have 2 more going One sold to lennar another to a big regional same terms larger returns for us and my client will make 8 figures on one :) .. On my new builds we hit the double cash on cash in certain markets sometimes its only 50%. But thats the quickest way to get to 350k a year and keep growing it. you have to force appreciation just like building a business. Rentals to get to 350 a year is going to take you quite a bit more cash or its going to take you years and years to get there. .. I have one bizz partner I sold a 100 unit apartment to 18 years ago for 5 mil and he paid cash.. They net net net 45k a month its totally passive for them they have a very good PM.. He also does solar deals that are out of this world in Hawaii but you need to be a Hawaii resident to get the full benefit..

Do you currently have 750k? There are many similar threads as yours. Feel free to read those as well.

OP skip the rental units. As people have mentioned to scale your talking a full time job with a lot of aggravation.Go with your sales and acquisition background. Jump to commercial projects. Don’t build or rent houses that has a lot of risk. NNN properties, self storage, boat rv parking, country subdivisions, etc all near you. $350,000 per year lifestyle. I’m not saying to reduce. Look at that and see how you can make money off your lifestyle in Real Estate.

@Greg P. You're in a great position. However, 3-5 years is a very short timeline in real estate. There's this sentiment in the marketplace of fast, easy, and no money required. Simply not the case, even though post-COVID success posts would have some thinking so. Not saying it's impossible, but the faster you want/need it to happen, the more risk you'll expose yourself to to get there. The massive elephant in the room is: What amount of income do you need to replace?

If you are open to all these things, I think a healthy mix of BRRRR, Flips and maybe a couple turnkey rentals in there - BRRRR is likely the best bet (if you have the time/energy) and can unemotionally pivot some to flips or deploy some capital on great turnkey deals as a secondary strategy

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Updated 10 days ago on 02/08/2025. Most recent reply

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Greg P.Poster

General Real Estate Investing

Getting Started. How & What would you do with $750k? Suggestions?

Greg P.Poster

Posted November 26, 2024 14:23

Hi Everyone,

I’m seeking advice on how to get started in real estate investing with a decent amount of liquid funds available to deploy—roughly up to $750K.

Currently, I’m working in the corporate world but looking to transition into real estate as my next venture. My ultimate goal is to use this capital to generate enough cash flow to focus on real estate full-time. While I’m not in a rush, I aim to strategically invest and grow a portfolio over the next 3–5 years to make a smooth exit from the corporate grind, as reporting to an office daily has left me feeling burnt out.

What strategies would you recommend? Should I consider:

Purchasing rental properties? (Best regions/areas for returns?)
Flipping homes?
Acquiring pre-existing rental portfolios?
Investing in mobile home parks?
Using leverage to scale, such as borrowing against this cash for larger down payments?
Employing the BRRRR ?
Targeting Section 8 housing?

I’m open to ideas and keen to hear what approaches have worked well for others who’ve found success in real estate. Any tips, strategies, or insights would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance to everyone who shares their thoughts.

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Eric Gerakos

Investor
Costa Mesa, CA

Eric Gerakos

Investor
Costa Mesa, CA

Replied November 27, 2024 06:52

I wouldn’t do any of those things. As I’m nearing retirement, I just invested a similar amount in first trust deeds secured by real estate at 9.75%. That’s $ 6,093.75 a month in passive cashflow. I don’t sell anything here on BP. I’m just an investor. Best of luck to you.

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