It's not easy, if it was everyone would be successful.

While I haven’t chosen a specific niche yet, I’m leaning toward purchasing a multi-unit apartment where my 20-year-old son could live and help manage while we rent out the other units—essentially a form of house-hacking.So far, I’ve connected with a few real estate agents and gained MLS access, which has been a great starting point.

Luckily, I did not include this unit in my underwriting when purchasing, so the survival of this property is not contingent on this situation.Continuing to optimize for management of the building when I move out, like moving everyone to online rent payments or adding remote accessible security cameras.Exploring opportunities to expand my portfolio—I've begun my hunt for my next 3 to 4-unit building to house hack, ideally in Lake View, North Center, or Ravenswood.This year taught me that real estate investing isn’t easy, but it’s undoubtedly worth it.

Example, buying a vacant lot from a neighbor and simply explaining that someone else will be on the contract in a few days is not easy.

They are easy to put together.  

Not easy to do with bank financing.

If you want to send me a DM I can send you a link to run an easy online quote

This can be less I just use this as a conservative estimate because the math is easy.   

Just for example, if you buy a single family home to flip at $300k and your rehab budget is $70k (which isn’t a ton - very easy to hit that amount) your ARV is definitely going to need to be above $500k to make any profit/make it worth doing at all.  

I proved to them lending me their money was an easy way for them to profit themselves.