What is your targeted ROI?

[Don Konipol]

What is your target for ROI (annual) on your passive real estate investments? On your investments which require a more active participation? How do you calculate it?

I target 12% + on my passive real estate investments.  20% or more for active real estate investments.  Without taking excessive risks - maximum leverage of 50%.  Now I will make relatively small investments in more high risk, potentially higher leveraged investments - but I consider these SPECULATIONS (old stock market term) rather than investments.  Speculation is somewhere between investing and gambling.  
Back 45 years ago when I first started investing in real property I didn’t hesitate to use 100% leverage with my personal guarantee.  In fact, I sometimes was able to use 100% +, in other words leave the closing table with cash in my pocket and a deed in my name!  My thinking was my net worth was 0 anyway, and you can’t go lower than 0 since you could always declare bankruptcy.  Not sure I would do it today because lending laws are much stricter and strategies considered legit then would be mortgage fraud today (partially because of changes in laws, also because of changes in loan documentation now requiring attests of sources of down payment, etc. ).  
Today I invest much more conservatively, as CAPITAL PRESERVATION is very important to me.  Also, when I started out inflation was running high and real property prices were going up and “bailing out” problematic investments.

So, what is YOUR target return?  Has it changed as years go by? 

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