What would you do?

[Bob Jones]

I'm currently an employee managing a multi-family with over 200 units, collecting about 1 million dollars in rent every year. I have worked for this private investor for the last 7 years. I have been responsible for the entire operation including managing a maintenance crew of 6 employees. The owner pays the bills and calls me once every two weeks to check on my vacancy rate, which I have kept under 2%. I'm also responsible for a second complex over 100 units but I mostly mentor and supervise the manager there.
I love what I do and I'm very good at it. I get $65,000 yearly salary for doing my job but lately I have been feeling that it is MY time to move on. I want (am going) to have an apartment complex that I can call my own. I know I can be very successful at it and I have a proven record of just doing just that. I am reading and learning about crunching the numbers when the right deal comes along. So here are my questions:
How would you get started if you were in my shoes? how much gross rent do I need to collect to NET $100,000 a year? what about hard money lenders? would they loan on my experience alone? how I do go about finding an investing partner? and No sorry, I don't have an uncle like Warren Buffett to borrow the 30% down, but I wish I did. Thank you in advanced.

[Jon Klaus]

Hi Bob, welcome to BiggerPockets. If I were in your position, I would start small while keeping my day job. Maybe look for a 4-plex where you could buy with an FHA loan (3.5% down), and live in one of the units. Force some appreciation and then trade up in a year or two, or cash out refi to buy another.

You've got the operations experience, it will take some time to add a capital base and enough credit to buy larger complexes. Work in that direction anyway, even if it seems like it will take too long. Time will pass either way, so do what you need to do now to position yourself.

You could also look to partner with deeper pocketed investors, where your management gets you some equity in the deals. You have less control in this scenario, but potentially could scale up faster.