The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Share Your Badassity => Topic started by: math-ya on March 18, 2015, 01:43:28 PM
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Hello everyone! I only recently discovered your site, but I think I'll fit right in. I can tell you about myself. I graduated college in dec 2008 with a degree in finance and entrepreneurship from a top ten b-school. Even with 20k a year in tuition, I was able to graduate with only 8k in debt. I did this from high school savings(15k) and flipping cars on the weekends from local government property auctions.
In dec 2008 I also started my first 'real' job in the manufacturing/finance industry. The first day that I went in, all I could imagine was the last day that i had to go to that place. To say that i didnt like it would be a massive understatement. Even though I was only working around 40 hrs/week, the job was basically consuming my life. the worst part was that this job was not getting me anywhere, financially speaking.
So after a year I decided to regroup. I quit my job, and moved back to my hometown, where I knew the real estate market, and houses were cheap. I finally concluded that if a job was going to consume my entire life I would have to make it financially worthwhile. Being a recently grad with little experience, I couldn't get any high paying jobs. So I took up 2 full time jobs, and one part timer. In addition to those 3 jobs I had another side job that I was able to complete while I was working my other 3 jobs. And if I had free time I would do handyman jobs or promotional work.
The money started rolling in, and I was too busy working to spend it. I bought my first duplex within one year.
Next year, one more duplex.
Next year, one more duplex.
So now I have 6 units ( 5 rented, 1 I live in)
Over the past year I have been shedding my jobs, and now all i do in manage my properties (5 hrs+-/month)
Im making about 30k after tax in passive income, which isnt a ton, but I have basically no bills.
Additionally I am converting the attic in one of my duplexes into my new house, so I should have 7 units total soon. Plus I am looking to expand my RE portfolio further- 1 duplex every year till Im 60
Its not easy to get out of the rat race. but I broke down exactly what I needed to save each DAY to reach my retirement goal by 30. So every single day to me was a WIN day or a FAIL day.
I got addicted to making everyday a WIN day, and in the end easily met my goal with my financially conservative RE models.
Its hard in the beginning, but once you get that passive income snowball effect going, it gets easier and easier.
“when big money begins to come it comes so quickly and in such large amounts, you wonder where it was hiding during all those lean years"
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Congrats! Sound like you had a lot of "win" days. :)
-- Vik
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Congrats! You're off to a great start. Nice to see other young folks using real estate to retire early. :)
You should start a thread in the RE section of the forums detailing more on the numbers (gross rents, purchase prices, etc.), I'm sure many of us would enjoy seeing it.
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Badass! Congrats. :)
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Nice! Real estate does seem to produce the earliest retirees when things go according to plan!
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Awesome! Well done. We also have a goal of increasing our RE holdings regularly, although I don't think we could manage one per year out here.
And I agree with Arebelspy, I'd love to read more of the details in the RE section.
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You should start a thread in the RE section of the forums detailing more on the numbers (gross rents, purchase prices, etc.), I'm sure many of us would enjoy seeing it.
+1.
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Welcome to MMM, and congratulations on all your success!!!
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Plus I am looking to expand my RE portfolio further- 1 duplex every year till Im 60
congrats.
an ambitious plan, but why add so many extra properties (and work to manage them) if you are already living on the 5 units you already have?
i can understand wanting more, but you are talking about going from 5 units that fund your current life to up over 125 units.
would seem like a bit of overkill.
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thanks everybody! its true 125 units would be a lot of work to manage. At that point I would def hire a property manager. My goal in the distant future is to grow my business to where it is totally self-sustainable, with some sort of board of trustees for oversight, so that I do no work. ever. then when i die ill have the monthly checks sent to the humane society. this way i can give to my fav charity long after i die.
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Congrats! A nice reward for hard work and gumption.
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This is seriously badass. $30k after tax in passive income is more than enough to sustain a frugal but decent lifestyle.
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Sweet!
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Damn dude!.. awesomely badass...:)
Theres me thinking I will eventually want out of the two rentals I got.. and there'd you.. woohoo..:)
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Nice work! Retired at 27 is super awesome. What was the average cost of your rentals? Real estate where I'm at is super expensive. Like $200,000 for a small apartment on the low side. 300k - 400k for a house or condo.
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the dollar amount acquisition cost of my properties was very low. 19k, 34k, and 36k. but you cant just hop on the MLS, look for a house like this and buy it. its not nearly that easy. my houses are in a B- neighborhood (they are all within 2 blocks of each other) I look for houses for sale everyday thru many different sources.
My first place was a short sale, that took one full year to close. It was a hassle. at one point the deal completely fell thru and we started over fresh. on closing day the seller demanded i give him $436 cash or he said he would walk. he was upset b/c he had bought the house 4 years earlier for 88k. ha- i gave him the 436.
the house was crap. crap. but i renovated both units myself for 3k. i bet a contractor would have charged you 10x that. i have tons of before/ after pics if youre interested.
the second place i got was a foreclosure from a lender that is notorious for holding onto properties, apparently to 'wait out the market' anyways they wanted 60k for the place and werent budging much. i used the listing agent as my agent, which isnt supposed to help, but it does! (of course they want that double commission)who eventually pushed the deal thru cuz she was an insider.
last place i got was a foreclosure from fannie mae. she incorrectly priced this house, thinking it was in a different neighborhood at 20k. 16 other bidders.
these houses dont sit around. almost every house i go into, i am the first to go into it, and i always make bids on places the first day its on the market.
and i do all the work myself, and am so cheap buying materials its a little crazy.
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IMO, it's a good thing you're buying more, cause I'm skeptical of netting 30k after tax (and expenses, vacancy, insurance, repairs, etc) on total purchase prices of 89k (19k, 34k, and 36k), even doing a ton of work yourself. 33% returns are possible, but with a lot of work (i.e. certainly not passive - and you're taking out 1/6th of them to live in, so it's actually over a 40% return when you prorate the equity).
Regardless, you're off to a great start at least, and even if you have to put in a lot of work and also need to acquire some more and make it more passive, at least you have enough to cover you being your own boss, rather than having to have a job. :)
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I actually net over 30k, but i have reserve funds for things like vacancies and upkeep that i never really use. and these places are bad when i buy them, but after the inital flip, the work is basically done. maintenance on a totally updated house is nothing. and the only other work is turning over units, which is easy for me cuz my houses are all 'cute'
ok check a couple reno pics
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oh and even though i spent only 89k, i would say the value of these 3 today is about 230k
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That is no-shit super badass! Good on ya!
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Even better! Saved like 180k on prices. I just learned something from you -- use the listing agent.
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Awesome work. I know they are just words but to say retired and passive income seems incorrect. Nothing passive about managing rentals long term. My friend lead a very similar story as you. He now has enough properties to generating income to raise a family on. He works at least 30 hours a week some times twice that.
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Great job, that's very impressive.
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Awesome work. I know they are just words but to say retired and passive income seems incorrect. Nothing passive about managing rentals long term. My friend lead a very similar story as you. He now has enough properties to generating income to raise a family on. He works at least 30 hours a week some times twice that.
i think he is very retired in the mustachian sense. I mean managing this blog is probably more than 5 hours a month for MMM but he considers himself retired.
Great work. If only i knew enough to take the leap into rentals i'm sure i'd thrive. but i have only 5 years of HAVE to working left and i mildly enjoy my job.
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oh and even though i spent only 89k, i would say the value of these 3 today is about 230k
Nice! Forced equity, and sweat equity, is great!
So a 30k net return on 191,667 (since you're only renting out 5/6th of that 230k, and living in the other unit) is a return of ~15.7%. That's completely doable, especially when you're managing yourself, doing labor yourself, etc. Makes much more sense now, thanks for clarifying. :)
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Awesome work. I know they are just words but to say retired and passive income seems incorrect. Nothing passive about managing rentals long term. My friend lead a very similar story as you. He now has enough properties to generating income to raise a family on. He works at least 30 hours a week some times twice that.
I agree - that type of real estate investing is active, and one is "retired" to a property management job (and in the OP's case, also the job of a listing agent, buyer's agent, and handyman).
Two responses though:
1) That's okay. He may still have a "job" that requires him to do work to not have to work (i.e. not retired by yours or my definition, but yes retired by MMM's definition), but some people are okay with that, and the fact that you are your own boss, set your own schedule, etc. is enough for some people. No need to IRP even if we disagree on the level of "retirement". :)
2) OP's case - and your friend's example - is not the only type of real estate investing that's possible.
I spend about 1hr/month per rental (and 11/12 months it is 0 hours, but when someone moves out it bunches up into one weekend of 6-8 hours meeting repairmen and showing the property to potential tenants), and that's managing them myself (but doing no work on the properties). The ones I don't manage I spend about 1 minute per month (10 minute phone call with my PM to get updates on 10 properties). When I pass off my other properties, I fully expect to spend less time managing my rentals than I do on my completely passive equities portfolio, just from rebalancing, tax loss harvesting, etc.
I will consider myself retired by pretty much any definition, even though most of my income will come from real estate. I'll be on the other side of the world, in fact, and spending very little time on real estate.
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I think of myself as retired even though I still do some ‘work’.
I consider my life just after college, doing the 9-5 job, where my life consisted of spending the entire daylight hours working for some large company who didn’t care about me. This job consumed the most valuable part of my day at the most important time of my life. I had to answer to a boss that I was smarter than. I felt like a dirty girl, like I was selling my time for money, and getting little in return.
My friends would call me while working and I would say “Sure I can talk, Im at work!” because I was just wasting the whole day, everyday.
Now if someone calls while Im at work its “Cant talk now, Im working!”
But that does not happen often. My life now consists of doing whatever I want, all the time. No more rush hour traffic, no mandatory company events, I get adequate sleep every night, I spend tons of time with my friends, family, and pets. My life has dramatically changed.
There are many different levels of managing your own rentals, you could and spend 5 hrs/ week or 5 hrs/ year on it. If you are just in a constant state of ‘putting out fires’ as problems arise, just like the rat race, youre probably never going to get ahead. But if you can anticipate problems before they occur, replacing things that you know could cause problems down the road (shutoff valves!) you save yourself from emergency calls, and doing work when you dont feel like doing work. My house may have been built in 1897, but everything that is important has been updated as I see fit.
I still ‘work’ but I love doing it. Is that really work? Aside from the fact that I know that this (now small) amount of effort is sustaining my life; I simply like to fix/ improve stuff. The craftsmanship in these 1890s-1930s homes is a true lost art, and being able to restore them is nothing but fun to me. I feel like Nicole Curtis on that rehab addict show sometimes. I really like it when I get to fix something ive never done before, but after any completed project the sense of accomplishment is palpable.
I get to make a big impact on my local community. I have an opportunity to treat tenants fairly. Some landlords (with mortgages) are very tight on cash, some are only focused only on the bottom line. I don’t have any pressing finances so I can give tenants a little extra time. My neighborhood is ‘mixed’ with a lot of good old residents as well as some trash. I am slowly buying up the crappy places, making them look great- inside and out, kicking out the trash and replacing them with quality tenants. It’s a small neighborhood so the changes are noticeable.
There will always people that tell me im dumb, and my tenants are going to stop paying rent and Im going to have to fix a toilet in the middle of the night and Im not taking into account this expense.
When youre retired do you want to do zero work? One of my tenants is 76, still works 16 hours/ week. He told me you got to stay busy; you retire and your body starts to break down. He dosent have to work, he chooses to. I could hire a property manager- they exist. I chose to work.
My definition of retired is getting out of the rat race, and doing what you want, when you want, and never having to do something you don’t want to.
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My definition of retired is getting out of the rat race, and doing what you want, when you want, and never having to do something you don’t want to.
To me, that seems like a great definition. I don't think I would ever want to just flat out not work. I like working, and I say that as someone who worked more than 70 hours this week! Being able to work 100% on your on terms seems ideal, and to me being financially secure is the way to reach that ideal.
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Congrats, it's great that you found something you love to do.
That being said, I consider you to be more like a small business owner than a retiree.
I am not involved in real estate as I prefer stocks so this may be a stupid question. Now that you are "retired" and have no employment income, will banks still be willing to give you mortgages to buy new properties?
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I actually net over 30k, but i have reserve funds for things like vacancies and upkeep that i never really use. and these places are bad when i buy them, but after the inital flip, the work is basically done. maintenance on a totally updated house is nothing. and the only other work is turning over units, which is easy for me cuz my houses are all 'cute'
ok check a couple reno pics
I'm glad to hear that repairs are very low on a renovated house. I had a similar experience but had many people tell me that it's not possible. When you fix everything that is broken you are going to have a few years of very low cost for repairs.
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I'm glad to hear that repairs are very low on a renovated house. I had a similar experience but had many people tell me that it's not possible. When you fix everything that is broken you are going to have a few years of very low cost for repairs.
Yup, you certainly will.
But long run you should plan for reasonable expenses. Don't fool yourself into thinking a few years of low expenses = forever. You can beat the typical in the short term, but in the long term the law of averages catches up to you.
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Mathya do you have anything in place besides real estate to act as a safety net? I work in finance and frequently talk to people who were bankrupted by having nearly everything invested in real estate. A couple of problems happen at the same time that cause you to not be able to rent and now your income stream is dried up.
Are you concerned about this? If not what is your reasoning?
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I work in finance and frequently talk to people who were bankrupted by having nearly everything invested in real estate.
The two main reasons for this are: Leverage and Timing.
Almost everyone who got burned had bad timing and poor use of leverage. OP shouldn't have either issue.
You're right in that he should have backup plans, cash reserves, and be careful, but I wouldn't worry about his situation too much, personally, especially since he's willing to put in the work. He'll need to keep working to improve it, but that's part of his plan.
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Arebelspy what would you recommend to new re investors to make sure they don't run into timing or leverage issues?
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If you are 27, how did you graduate college in 2008?
Hello everyone! I only recently discovered your site, but I think I'll fit right in. I can tell you about myself. I graduated college in dec 2008 with a degree in finance and entrepreneurship from a top ten b-school. Even with 20k a year in tuition, I was able to graduate with only 8k in debt. I did this from high school savings(15k) and flipping cars on the weekends from local government property auctions.
In dec 2008 I also started my first 'real' job in the manufacturing/finance industry. The first day that I went in, all I could imagine was the last day that i had to go to that place. To say that i didnt like it would be a massive understatement. Even though I was only working around 40 hrs/week, the job was basically consuming my life. the worst part was that this job was not getting me anywhere, financially speaking.
So after a year I decided to regroup. I quit my job, and moved back to my hometown, where I knew the real estate market, and houses were cheap. I finally concluded that if a job was going to consume my entire life I would have to make it financially worthwhile. Being a recently grad with little experience, I couldn't get any high paying jobs. So I took up 2 full time jobs, and one part timer. In addition to those 3 jobs I had another side job that I was able to complete while I was working my other 3 jobs. And if I had free time I would do handyman jobs or promotional work.
The money started rolling in, and I was too busy working to spend it. I bought my first duplex within one year.
Next year, one more duplex.
Next year, one more duplex.
So now I have 6 units ( 5 rented, 1 I live in)
Over the past year I have been shedding my jobs, and now all i do in manage my properties (5 hrs+-/month)
Im making about 30k after tax in passive income, which isnt a ton, but I have basically no bills.
Additionally I am converting the attic in one of my duplexes into my new house, so I should have 7 units total soon. Plus I am looking to expand my RE portfolio further- 1 duplex every year till Im 60
Its not easy to get out of the rat race. but I broke down exactly what I needed to save each DAY to reach my retirement goal by 30. So every single day to me was a WIN day or a FAIL day.
I got addicted to making everyday a WIN day, and in the end easily met my goal with my financially conservative RE models.
Its hard in the beginning, but once you get that passive income snowball effect going, it gets easier and easier.
“when big money begins to come it comes so quickly and in such large amounts, you wonder where it was hiding during all those lean years"
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Arebelspy what would you recommend to new re investors to make sure they don't run into timing or leverage issues?
Timing:
Buy properties when the numbers make sense to do so.
People were buying based on "hot" markets, the numbers fundamentally didn't make sense, and they were praying for more appreciation and a bigger fool. 2006-2007 was not a good time to buy. The numbers made that clear. Stick with the fundamentals
Leverage:
Be prudent. Again, the numbers have to make sense, and you have to be able to support the debt service. Over leverage is a great way to get in a lot of trouble.
If you avoid those two issues -- buying because it's popular when the numbers don't make sense, and overleveraging -- you shouldn't get into a situation where you lose everything.
If some worst-case scenario happened where tenants or some natural disaster destroyed one of my houses... so? I have insurance. I have a dozen others. That's a bummer, but ultimately in the long run pretty negligible, and in no way would wipe me out. (Lawsuit, similar, I have umbrella insurance, etc.) Protect yourself, but if you're actually investing and not speculating, you shouldn't be at risk to lose everything. That's just gambling, and of course your ROR is high there.
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If you are 27, how did you graduate college in 2008?
Graduating college @ 20 isn't that uncommon. My wife did so. I was 21, but took extra time I didn't need to, could have finished earlier.
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it was december 08- but i got a little head start b/c i had graduated high school a semester early.
but as far as safety nets, i have a lot of cash currently, but all my homes were bought outright, no loans. so im not the type of real estate investor that goes under. but my bank will loan to me because i have a strong relationship with them.
maintenance costs to me are so small. to keep material costs down i am always going to estate sales, and in the basements and garages- you can clear out some old guys entire collection of stuff for a few bucks. theres tons of types of crap you know youre going to need in this business. my basement is starting to look like a hardware store, hah
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If you are 27, how did you graduate college in 2008?
Graduating college @ 20 isn't that uncommon. My wife did so. I was 21, but took extra time I didn't need to, could have finished earlier.
Yeah, I graduated at 20. Probably could have done 19 if I didn't double major and required courses were offered more frequently at the school I went to. Doing a full 4 years in 3 or less is not too hard. Coming in with a full year of AP credit made it simple as hell. Can't remember how much the test fees were, but I doubt my parents paid more than $1,000 or so for me to get a full year of college credit.
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Congratulations :) We love watching Nicole Curtis too, you are lucky to have found your passion this early in life and way to go with all the side hustles!
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Pretty cool gig - good for you.
Do you regret college? Seems to me you could have started this w/your 15K savings right out of HS.
Thanks for sharing, this is definitely bad-ass!
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I dont regret college because it was really fun, plus i gained a lot of knowledge and useful skills. I think i would be further ahead today in terms of units owned because of all the time and money I spent on college. In the long run, maybe my more advanced skillset will put me financially further ahead. I guess it depends if I do some more complicated deals with financing to really leverage myself to get the largest possible return. That might take some thinking, right now the way i do it is pretty simple.
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My definition of retired is getting out of the rat race, and doing what you want, when you want, and never having to do something you don’t want to.
This (and the entire post that goes with it) is going to be my inspirational quote of the day. Thanks!
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My definition of retired is getting out of the rat race, and doing what you want, when you want, and never having to do something you don’t want to.
This (and the entire post that goes with it) is going to be my inspirational quote of the day. Thanks!
+1!!!!!!
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Great work, very inspiring.
Keep building that safety into your future by continuing to grow the empire I reckon.
If you are enjoying it, and it's working, then don't let anyone stop you.
Any plans to diversify into other states / towns?
Does sticking in the one area expose you to too much risk in the case of a large economic downturn in your area?
I only ask, because my home town went through a large downturn with the closure of a mine, and those who had made it big in property suffered.
Good luck.
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Congratulations, well done on the early retirement.
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Great work, very inspiring.
Keep building that safety into your future by continuing to grow the empire I reckon.
If you are enjoying it, and it's working, then don't let anyone stop you.
Any plans to diversify into other states / towns?
Does sticking in the one area expose you to too much risk in the case of a large economic downturn in your area?
I only ask, because my home town went through a large downturn with the closure of a mine, and those who had made it big in property suffered.
Good luck.
there are 600k people in my city (1 mil in the greater region) and we have lost tons of jobs lost over the past 40 years or so as manufacturing left for Mexico. But those people generally stayed and just became poorer- being supported by the gov. So my problem is more of the ghetto consuming my neighborhood.
So I am tying to diversify the neighborhoods where I own houses. Right now I'm bidding on a place in an amazing neighborhood, but starting with a place in this hood would have been much harder because of the higher purchase price.
It would help me diversify further by getting stuff out of state or city, but then I couldn't manage myself. And the real reason I can do the investing thing well is because I know this city and can differentiate the locations.
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Good points Math-ya.
The town I referred too has 80K people in it, and mining was/is its main source of revenue and employment.
You are obviously making it work in a difficult location already, so congrats again.
Good luck with the next purchase.
Murdoch
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Retiring with 27?? Thats not possible!!11!! :D
Well, congrats, you really did it.
But I cant understand what you mean with 2 full time jobs, one side job and somethgin else AND doing property work?
That adds up 8+8+4+?+? hours, without sleeping, eating, getting to work etc. I am quite sure your day also has only 24 hours. So how?
Even 2 full time jobs for a longer time should be impossible to do without the body breaking down.
As others said you should probably think about adding unit after unit of rental property. You should also think about not doing all in one place. If something like in Detroit happens in your town most if not all of your income could vaporize.
So get other streams of income.
My advise would be to split your unneeded income, get half of it inot houses as you do, half of it into index funds (you find examples on this blog, I think you know that). Do that until you are at double your current houses.
Then you should have a living passive income from your houses even in a Detroit scenario AND from your stocks. Together it should be enough even for a family in a big economic crises.
Then you shoudl sit down and really think what you want to do.
If you still want to do in houses, get to a place 2 car hours away, get a few and hire a property manager. You know, diversification and no additional work on a daily basis.
If you have found other goals, do them. Perhaps building eco-friendly houses, mostly/fully self-sufficient? Since you do a lot of work anyway. And this could help you improve the worth and rentability of existing property. (and save the world blabla ;) )
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working 4 jobs is very doable. some of my friends went into i-banking after school and push 100+ hrs a week, every week for years, and its really hard work. now that sounds impossible without the body breaking down. i was able to do this by getting jobs that fit in my schedule, and were easy.
my full time finance job was normal 9-5 gig. i came in early at 7, ate lunch at my desk, and left by 3 everyday
-i actually only did real 'work' for a few hours, most time was spent on my side income streams. my side streams at the time consisted of sitting on craigslist all day and hitting refresh. i would flip anything for profit, or take any free item. and dont even get me started on the 'gigs' section. also i worked for chacha- if you remember them. before smartphones caught on- you could text any question to chacha for 99cents. i was the guy sitting at my cube answering your questions for 10 cents a pop.
my part time job as a promotional model had a very flexible schedule but i most worked on weekday evenings for 3-4 hours at a time
my second full time job was marketing for a cigarette company. technically it was a job, but all i did was go to the bars on thurs, fri, sat nites and get paid to talk to people. we had other tasks to complete thruout the week but it was all work i could complete at my finance job.
and i worked as a handyman for people i knew, and worked on my own properties as i got them.
you might say i am a bad employee.. i really am the worst employee, thats why i had to get out of that game. i was fired/ laid off from damn near every job ive ever had due to my weird antics. lol
As far as your detroit scenerio happening here, it already has to a large extent. most the middle class jobs left and now its so many poor people. but people survive- they make it work, they dont all turn homeless. there is no cheaper city to move to. this is the end of the line lol. my rents really cant go much lower in my current hood. like i said the problem i would have is more of bad people consuming my hood, which would make my turnover go thru the roof and maintenance costs go up, fixing more things from worse tenants. but thats why in the future im going to diversify neighborhoods. the city is too diverse for everyone to go bust. that would be more of an apocalyptic scenario.
if i was legit retired @ 27, with only a couple properties, i might need a lot of help where to go next. but im not.
this is a lifestyle thing for me, that ive been doing since i was a little kid, its not a website i found and decided to change my spending.
people here act like you need to plan out your entire life before you do it.
but this is just the way i live, so all the pieces just fall into place as i go.
theres a time to invest in other people (stocks-when youre old) and theirs a time to invest in yourself- while you still can.
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I work in finance and frequently talk to people who were bankrupted by having nearly everything invested in real estate.
The two main reasons for this are: Leverage and Timing.
Almost everyone who got burned had bad timing and poor use of leverage. OP shouldn't have either issue.
You're right in that he should have backup plans, cash reserves, and be careful, but I wouldn't worry about his situation too much, personally, especially since he's willing to put in the work. He'll need to keep working to improve it, but that's part of his plan.
These are very good points. I have an old boss. He's unemployed right now. He's gotten laid off many times in his 30+ years in the work force. But he's frugal and has saved enough that he doesn't really care, and usually enjoys 6 - 18 months off between jobs to fix up his homes.
Every time we have lunch, he will recommend ways to reduce my taxes. Example: he has an orchard. People come to pick the fruit and keep them watered and pay them. But he gets to depreciate the property. Another example: a rental home.
I think they are great ideas. But I have 2 young kids and we bought our current (and only) house darned near the peak. I don't feel comfortable with the amount of leverage required to get a second home or property. The difference between when we bought and the bottom of the market in our area was $300k.
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working 4 jobs is very doable. some of my friends went into i-banking after school and push 100+ hrs a week, every week for years, and its really hard work. now that sounds impossible without the body breaking down. i was able to do this by getting jobs that fit in my schedule, and were easy.
my full time finance job was normal 9-5 gig. i came in early at 7, ate lunch at my desk, and left by 3 everyday
-i actually only did real 'work' for a few hours, most time was spent on my side income streams. my side streams at the time consisted of sitting on craigslist all day and hitting refresh. i would flip anything for profit, or take any free item. and dont even get me started on the 'gigs' section. also i worked for chacha- if you remember them. before smartphones caught on- you could text any question to chacha for 99cents. i was the guy sitting at my cube answering your questions for 10 cents a pop.
my part time job as a promotional model had a very flexible schedule but i most worked on weekday evenings for 3-4 hours at a time
my second full time job was marketing for a cigarette company. technically it was a job, but all i did was go to the bars on thurs, fri, sat nites and get paid to talk to people. we had other tasks to complete thruout the week but it was all work i could complete at my finance job.
and i worked as a handyman for people i knew, and worked on my own properties as i got them.
you might say i am a bad employee.. i really am the worst employee, thats why i had to get out of that game. i was fired/ laid off from damn near every job ive ever had due to my weird antics. lol
As far as your detroit scenerio happening here, it already has to a large extent. most the middle class jobs left and now its so many poor people. but people survive- they make it work, they dont all turn homeless. there is no cheaper city to move to. this is the end of the line lol. my rents really cant go much lower in my current hood. like i said the problem i would have is more of bad people consuming my hood, which would make my turnover go thru the roof and maintenance costs go up, fixing more things from worse tenants. but thats why in the future im going to diversify neighborhoods. the city is too diverse for everyone to go bust. that would be more of an apocalyptic scenario.
if i was legit retired @ 27, with only a couple properties, i might need a lot of help where to go next. but im not.
this is a lifestyle thing for me, that ive been doing since i was a little kid, its not a website i found and decided to change my spending.
people here act like you need to plan out your entire life before you do it.
but this is just the way i live, so all the pieces just fall into place as i go.
theres a time to invest in other people (stocks-when youre old) and theirs a time to invest in yourself- while you still can.
I think for sure it's MUCH easier to do that in your 20's. I remember having almost limitless energy then. Full time job in the Navy, taking graduate classes 2x a week for 3 hours, and playing as much volleyball as possible (2-3 nights a week, plus weekends). That is totally the time to do it! I've worked with many guys who never went to school and kind of "want to". But they find themselves mid-to-late 30's with 3 kids and a wife and a job. Trying to get a BS with all that is challenging, and most never manage it.
You are right, your homes are adorable. Definitely the cuteness factor!