All Forum Posts by: Terry McMillan

Thanks! @Grant Rothenburger

@Account Closed Thanks and it's awesome to know you're in the Temple area. I'll definitely reach out sometime so we can meet up and talk. 

Thank you for the welcome! I am excited about the opportunities that lay ahead and look forward to diving deeper into Bigger Pockets.

@Justin Windham Thanks for much for the resource links. I definitely want to start taking advantage of the alerts.

I discovered BiggerPockets through a friend a couple of months ago and decided it was time to introduce myself. I live in the Temple area of Central Texas. I have a beautiful wife named LeAnn and 3 grown daughters. I have worked for a software company the past 20 years and my wife and I also own a Crossfit gym. 

I love this site and have been trying to be a sponge and soak up as much information as I can. I am interested in creating a portfolio of rental and multi-family units and have also been exploring self-storage facilities. The goal is to generate some good monthly cash flow from my investments. I will continue to expand my education here and hope to upgrade my membership to PRO shortly. Looking forward to being able to purchase my first deal. 

Thanks guys for the replies. I appreciate it. 

Bryan, I am 48 years old so I have a little while before I hit 59 1/2 which is why I was exploring options with my 401k. I do not have the expectation of realizing financial freedom quickly just by purchasing some properties. I know it was take several years of research and buying the right type of properties in order to get the monthly cash flow where I would like it to be. Although I currently enjoy my job, there are some things I would like to pursue in the future. At this point, I am exploring all options. Keeping my 401k and coming up with down payments a different way is certainly a possibility. I also think that with the right properties, I think I could get a better return on my real estate investments instead of just leaving the money in the 401k, which also helps ease the pain of penalties and taxes. A self directed IRA is still on the table and I have started researching the ROBS option that you mentioned.

Most of the posts I've seen here regarding 401k cash outs haven't had the amount that I have in my account so I wanted to get some opinions to try and help narrow down the direction I should go in.

Thanks.

I am wanting to get started in real estate investing by acquiring rental properities. I have a substantial 401K ($300k) that I could cash out and use to start buying a few properties. However, I will lose $100k right off the top due to penalties and taxes (ouch!). I would then pay off a little debt which would leave me a large chunk of cash for property purchases. I know I could choose to do a self-directed IRA but I won't get any benefits of the monthly cash flow since it all has to go back in the IRA. One of my initial goals with the real estate investments is to get a large enough monthly cash flow to realize some financial freedoms concerning my current job.

Besides the 401k cash out, any other ideas on how I could get started? One possibility is a house hack with a duplex and renting out our current house which has great rental potential. That would give me 2 rental units as a start. Looking forward to your thoughts and suggestions.