Investor from Houston Texas

[Carolyn W.]

Hello,

I'm a new investor and have one SFR rental and just bought a condo for me to live in that is close to work. I plan on living in that condo for a few years before moving out and turning it into a rental. My goal is to have enough cash flow of $100K per year in 3 years. I have a demanding full time job so flipping may not be an option at this time.

I'm looking at $75K 3/2 SFR homes. This comes to about $23k of cash I need to save for $15k (20% down), $3k lender financing costs and 5K rehab budget.

I'm open to ideas on alternative real estate investing strategies so that I can get to goal faster. Even at best with $500K cashflow, I'd need to purchase 17 SFR homes in 3 years. I'm starting to educate myself on multi-family and apartments.

With just my income, I can purchase two $60K-$75K SFR properties / year. In 3 years, that would make 6 properties, one of which is the condo I'm living in. That would bring me to $2500/ month ($30K/year) cash flow if all 5 properties were cash flowing at $500/month.

The alternative strategy is to get a multifamily unit but that would mean I'd need to wait 2 years to just save $80K (20% down) to purchase a multifamily of $320K with a cap rate of 10% that provides a gross income of $32K/year.

From these two scenarios, it looks like I might as well purchase SFRs since the second scenario of waiting 2 years to buy a multi-family would mean I would not be actively investing for 2 years. 

Any suggestions you can give me are welcome.  Maybe there is a podcast or webinar I'll need to see.