I am looking to retire from the Marines in about a year and a half and settle in the area. 

(And hopefully a “rental” in Hawaii, or the USVI, or somewhere you always wanted to retire.)

Here I am but I was not sure how to title this or if I picked the best forum category for my question but here it is.I heard from someone that the local property management companies know people who are retiring from rental business and thinking about selling their properties.

Make retirement priority in this order, company match, Roth, traditional until you have 15% gross income budgeted for this. 

I don’t have any retirement so I was considering opening either a self directed IRA or Solo 401k.

What is Roth IRAIt is not some other kind of retirement account.

We do have a decent amount of cash put aside in savings that we could put towards new flooring and/or some other fixes in a rental, we each have a retirement fund, and we do not touch the income that our first rental has produced unless it is something specifically needed for that property, so that is building up slowly, but nicely. 

After holding, we will use the proceeds which are going back into the self directed IRA to update it and sell it, when retiring.

@Nicholas GrandstaffThe best time to invest in real estate/yourself was 20 years ago.The second best time to invest in real estate/yourself is now.I am happy to hear that you are making the steps forward to invest in yourself/real estate.It is tough to say taking a retirement distribution is a smart/wise move.It depends on what returns you were achieving in the retirement accountsWhat marginal tax rate you are in right nowWhat return you will make on those distributions?

As as small business owner, I feel that this is my best avenue to retirement.