This is way too hypothetical with massively important variables missing.
1. The most important one, as @Tim Ryan points out, is the question of whether the investor is single or married. I am living proof that there's absolutely nothing more important than answering this first question first. My wife is fully involved in our business. She brought us our first deal. She handles many of our tenants these days.
We wouldn't have gotten off the ground if my wife was not right in this with me.
2. What's the stable blue collar job? Blue collar jobs is that they are usually linked into larger networks within communities. Here's a great example: C.S. has been my dumpster-rental guy for the last five years. He came to me by way of my mason, who also uses him.
C.S. is really damned good at what he does, and a big part of this is that he's a great communicator. Of course people talk to him, so he knows EVERYONE in the single-family renovation game in Pittsburgh. And he knows who's working regularly, who's only off-and-on, who's going through troubles, who needs extra work. C.S. is one of my first calls when I need somebody good at something specific. Ironically, C.S. isn't in the real estate game himself because his wife isn't up for the life.
3. How tight is your money game? Especially starting out, you're never going to get anywhere if you don't manage to get full and complete control if you don't have an absolute grasp on all your personal finances, if you don't know about lifestyle creep and the hedonic treadmill, if you or the person handling your money can't pinch a penny until the shield dents.
4. This business is never linear. Once you get to ten years in, your life is going to look very, very different than what it does today. I recently hit a buffet far away from our normal one down the street, and there were two guys in T-shirts and jeans in there talking at the top of their voices about how they were "$125K into this deal" and were working on "getting $50K out of this flip." That was me six years ago. Now I have other concerns.
Sure, I've been self-employed in the business now for two years and my wife just quit her main job, but we're not slowing down now. If you end up being the same way, your ten years may end up looking more like fifteen -- it might just be a better deal. Are you willing to accept that?
That's the real world of investing, instead of pie-in-the-sky strategizing at the buffet.
