Deciding where to focus - multifamily or single family rentals?

[James Rodgers]

Hi everyone, 

This is my introductory discussion. I am excited and thankful to have found the arena that BP appears to be. I am a married, 27-year-old father of 2 little girls, living in Birmingham, AL. I currently work as an engineer but have recently nailed down an end goal of our family living off of income from rental properties. The purpose behind this is to spend tons of time with my kids, and also freedom to spend my time serving the poor. So, that's me in a nutshell.

Long term I would like to own apartment complexes, but in the coming years I see myself focusing on buy and hold residential properties with a lot of value-add opportunity (I believe Birmingham is rich in these). 

Here is my question: I am hearing that being extremely focused is really helpful. Is it ok to search for great deals among multifamily and single family properties and act upon whichever I find, possibly buying both types over the years? Or am I going to benefit most from making a decision between the two and spending all of my time only on one type?

Thanks so much!

James

[Brian Adams]

@James Rodgers, welcome to BP. 

Not sure if my thread about how I quit my CPA Job to buy Large Apartment Buildings will be helpful to you, but wanted to pass along. My reason on sharing is I am hoping you may find one nugget of info to help you out.

For me it was getting crystal clear on my WHY.

You know this already, but there is no easy button in this business. In my opinion if you have one foot in SFH's and the other in multi's you could become distracted and discouraged very quickly. There is a lot to learn.

My suggestion is to pick one and be an expert. As you go through the learning experience you might realize that you don't like XYZ...for me, I used to flip 1 to 2 houses a month and realized over time it was taking me away from my passion of buying 100 to 400 unit deals. So now I don't flip houses.

Good luck on your journey...also make sure utilize BP, there are great forums, threads, podcasts and resources that will help you.