Real Estate Investor · Northfield, MA · Member since 2008 · 101 posts · 0 votes
Just curious how many of you would consider real estate investing your primary source of income. My wife and I hope to do this full time some day, just curious how realistic we are being. Our first goal is to master wholesaling as well as purchase a rental property. Hoping your replies will motivate us but we need hard core honesty as well!
They key to being a full time investor is to get your income to cover your expenses. Just remember, sometimes reducing expenses is the better choice. So if you focus on your needs and not your wants, you can do this full time!
I'm full time in the sense that my investing and rental rehab business provide my primary income (probably due to the fact that I've lost my fear of telling bosses to do illicit activities to themselves....) but it's certainly not a glamourous lifestyle. Like any business, your first couple years you reinvest every dime you make.
Wholesaling's a hard road to go full time in this..... Realize that it is a real estate job/business to be a wholesaler and your going into a time when the demand is not what it was 3 years ago and there's a glut of supply. Supply and demand rule business. Also, it is not investing in the true sense of the term. Every time you complete a wholesale, your income stops until you do another one. If you do do it, think of it as a second job. Flip side is if you are successful at it - you'll generally make more cash in hand (I say cash, not money) doing wholesales than holding rental property.
Rental property on the other hand pays you continuously as you continue to hold it. It may pay you less cash in hand today but over time it pays more and it builds your equity as well. I am very biased towards holding rental property. People have been making fortunes off of holding rental property since Charles Martell invented feudalism in the 8th century. It has worked for 12 centuries.... And btw - I started buying rental property when I was 26 and making a very modest salary. I then restarted post-divorce when I W-2'd at just about the poverty line and was still able to buy a small apartment complex. It's a lot easier to buy rental property than you think.
Great post Tim. It isn't glamourous! I've been doing it full time just over a year now. Rough ride. I jumped in before I was ready, which made it a little more rough... I suggest having plenty of cash reserves before you decide to jump. Good luck!
I don't know about Tim or BlueStar, but I'm a full-time landlord and I'm in it for the glory and glamour! Take yesterday an example, I painted 2 rooms in one of my apartments - GLORIUS! Today, I've got to clean out (unclog) the main sewer line at my new apartment building. If that's not glamourous, I don't know what is!!!
I'm still waiting to sit on my YACHT and sip tall drinks with supermodels like you see on all the infomercials! Does my wife even want me sipping tall drinks with supermodels? Somehow, I doubt it!
Thanks guys!! We are being realistic (atleast I hope) We will not quit our day jobs until we make enough passive income to cover our expenses. IE: through rental poperties. The reason we want to start in wholesaling is for the CASH. We need $$$ to get started. I appreciate all of your advice and honesty. We don't expect it to be glamorous but we are hoping to secure our retirement. We are in our 30s so I'm hoping that is an attainable goal.
I am very blunt, so you won't have to worry about getting any B.S. from me.
I am a full time investor and I have worked my butt off to achieve to this. 95% of investors will never pay the price for success which enables you to do this business full time.
I have worked 7 days a week, 12 hours a day to get where I am at. It is not easy because if it were, there would be a lot more millionaires in this country.
Just make sure that you have written goals and that EVERY single day of the week, you are doing at least one activity to get closer to the goals.
Also, remember that we are all going to die one day, so you have nothing to lose by giving it your all.
Passive income refers to income streams where income is received on a regular basis, with little effort required to maintain the income stream. Examples of passive income are rental from property, and royalties from patents or license agreements. Passive income streams usually require a lot of effort to set up, but little effort to maintain. Dividend and interest income from owning securities, such as stocks and bonds, are usually referred to as portfolio income, which can be considered a form of passive income.
Some other types of passive income are:
Royalties from writing a book
Royalties from a patent
Earnings from Network Marketing
Earnings from AdSense or other internet advertisement on your websites.
Earnings from a business that does not require direct involvement from the owner (creation of business systems; also referred to as a cash flow muse business)
or offering a service that doesn't require the merchant's intervention. In these cases, PayPal IPN may be used to achieve this.