My Plan To Invest In Real Estate

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve made the decision to go all in on me and let all of my entrepreneurial tendencies play out while documenting the process as I go along. I’ve been taking the time to learn as much as I can about the various ways to make money and have found some really good resources. It’s allowed me to come up with some short and long term goals. In this post, I want to share my plans about investing in real estate.

I first heard of landlords as a teen, when my parents mentioned one of my uncles owning and renting his house. Being able to leverage his asset like that made him a success story in my eyes. As I got older, I saw real estate investors who made their way to TV shows and even become angel investors. Their stories inspired me to the point that I thought maybe this is something I could succeed at. I began doing some research about how one becomes a real estate investor. Being ambitious and having too much time on my hands after work led me to the deep and noisy world of real estate investment content.

From everything I’ve consumed, I understood that there are two segments of real estate investors. There’s landlords that are more operators and then there are investors who are more hands off. Landlords will manage the property, collect the rent, and carry out any legal actions that need to take place. Investors will leverage their money and bring on a manager to take care of the day to day. During my research, I found a lot of negative content that almost made me not want to follow through. These were negative narratives from landlords that made real estate investing seem like a bad idea. I dug through a lot of forums and websites before finding some positive content that offered more perspective and context.

I’m not a fan of having a “me too” business idea so I had to deploy some self awareness to fully understand why I’m interested in this venture. I’ve decided that I’d rather be an investor rather than a landlord. This would allow me to have a diversified portfolio and real estate has been getting a better return than my current savings. I’m not the most handsy person and I want to have my time. I can either use my funds and/or other people’s to purchase the property, hire someone or an organization to manage it, and make sure all the legal paperwork or procedures are taken care of when needed. This decision will come with added costs, but it will be offset with proper execution. I will not be looking into any single family homes, but multi family properties or apartments. I learned that it’s also critical to chase a good deal rather than the numbers, so I will have to be patient for the right deal. That means not to overpay or buying in a bad location.

I know I’ve said a lot of “I want to” and “I will” in this post, but this may end up being my own call to action. Because I understand the path ahead of me on this venture, the deal will have to make sense, and that means I’m about 3 years away from starting. I currently have about $14,000 of consumer debt that I need to work on paying down, and significantly increase my me fund before taking that first step. As I wait, I’m learning a lot and gathering as many resources as I can. A few events that can make it all happen faster are paying the debt quicker than planned, getting a windfall, or getting funding. All of those are possibilities, but I’m being grounded and trusting the process of learning more, rather than jumping in too fast and having a bad experience. Execution is crucial in real estate investing and I want to win at it. Deploying patience and daily execution have been great learning experiences so I’m excited for the first step, whenever it may come.  

What investment opportunities are you prepping for?