PART-TIME REAL ESTATE INVESTING, a.k.a. property-side hustling

[Jim K.]

Something that @Don Konipol recently pointed out in another thread of mine is that successful real estate investors from all walks of life really do seem to share a unified trait: THEY LOVE REAL ESTATE.

They're obsessed by it. They talk your ear off about property given half an opportunity. It's a lifestyle for them, not something they pick up in their off time and leave off easily when there's something else to do that occupies their interest. NOTHING ELSE occupies their interest in the same way.

So this is an informal poll: does anyone here in the BP forums do real estate purely on the side and doesn't wish they did it full-time? Is it a contained interest for you, and you could either take it or leave it? If you day-trade or read the tea leaves for hot stock tips or play the ponies or simply put your money in index funds, do any of these things occupy your interest like real estate?

Ultimately, does anyone really ever set out to do real estate as a minor part of their life's ambitions and succeed in it as a side hustle that they spend a carefully limited amount of their time and energy on?

Or do you simply have to be obsessed to even have a chance to make it in this business?