Introduction & A what would you do if you were me post (39, Esq., Married, $400k)

[Christopher Mount]

Good Morning PB Community:

Introduction & Current Situation

I've been stalking the BP podcasts and forums for a while. I've learned a lot in general and I can see that this is a great community. I figured now would be a good time to jump in, introduce myself, and ask for advice. I am thirty-nine years old, married going on six years, and my wife and I have a 14-month-old. I am an attorney, and my wife is a pediatrician. My wife introduced me to a podcast called "Whitecoat Investors" which had a guest on it from the PB community. That's how I discovered PB a few years ago.

We've owned our own home since I believe June of 2021 in central NJ (not sure how much equity we have in it). I've made about $140k the last two years between my full-time job and some personal injury cases I've settled. This upcoming year I'm going to make only $90k from my job. My wife makes around $180k consistently from her job alone. I could take on a job that pays a lot better, however, my current job gives me a lot of spare time that I can pour into real estate investing (at least 30 hours a week, potentially more at times). We have about $400k in HY that we can deploy.

Background, Skills, Resources & What I've Been Doing

I've been practicing law for about 13 years now in the NY & NJ area. The vast majority of my experience has been in litigation. I've litigated personal injury cases (plaintiff's side and ID), business disputes, commercial debt, consumer debt, fraud, civil rights, contested foreclosure, real estate disputes, and landlord-tenant cases.

For the past year and a half, I have been spending most of my time digging into small business acquisitions. I've been part of a mentorship group for the whole time, I built a deal team and I've been looking at purchasing a cash-flowing business utilizing SBA financing. My thinking has been that I'll rely upon my skills as a litigator to conduct due diligence along with my mentor and deal team. Given the fact that the Baby-Boomer generation is retiring and interest rates are high (making a buyer's market) I should be in a good place. I've looked at hundreds of businesses at this point and several deals have looked really good to me. However, nothing has worked out to date for better or worse. I won't go into all the details, but there always ends up being a significant problem in the documents I get or don't get, in negotiations, etc, and the trigger never gets pulled.

For a variety reasons in addition to the above, including my wife's encouragement, I've decided to take a serious look at going the real estate route instead. I struggle to see how I will make as much money as I would going the business route, however, I do realize that it is a lot safer. I also have a lot of competitive advantages going this route. I can do title research on my own, I've dealt with property management companies, and I've dealt with all kinds of real estate related litigation (adverse possession, title defects, foreclosures, HOA disputes, evictions, to name a few). I also have some solid contacts I can bring into play. My little brother is in construction management. He did homebuilding for a few years and is currently building a $40M condo complex for a family office. He also has two multifamily properties himself that he is renting out. I also have a friend who is in development for renewable energy; solar and EV charging stations. The question is; what route do I go in real estate?

Stuff I've Looked At & Conclusion

Initially, I thought of looking into the foreclosure game. I know foreclosures are going up and I know how the whole foreclosure industry works in NY and NJ. I have a variety of contacts and I'm pretty sure I can get in touch with destressed property owners long before auction day (years before auction day actually). I also thought about multifamily since my brother is in that space and I have a ton of eviction experience. I know Netflix is going to build out a whole industrial area in south central NJ in the coming years and I thought mid-term rental might be a great move for me. Then I stumbled across rural land flipping (ala RETipster, Land Geek, Land Academy, etc) and bought multiple books on that and have started to seriously think about that. I also thought about rural land entitlement and development to leverage my friend who can spearhead renewable energy development anywhere across the country.

There's a lot of options. The bottom line is that my wife and I are thinking we're going to put the baby into daycare toward the end of the summer. My wife also doesn't want to work full-time anymore, she wants to go part-time. I need to make more money. I'm fine with getting a better paying job and having less time so she can go part-time. However, I have a ton of time right now that I'd like to leverage while I can and get the ball rolling. I haven't stopped looking into small business acquisitions; however, it's just slim picking for me for some reason and it's just not coming together. I know I've mentioned NY & NJ a lot, but I'm willing to look at any geography in the US. We're sitting on $400k and have good revenue right now. My goal is that I want to create $200k in revenue from real estate so that my wife could actually quit her work completely if she wanted.

What would you do if you were me and why?

Respectfully,

Chris M.