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Can Real Estate Investing Really Lead to the Good Life?

LTL

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I'm always looking to invest. In fact, I have invested in two other people on this forum over the past couple years.

Of course, that's why I'm pretty good at separating the doers from the fakers... And that's how I know which you are.

I promise the day you accomplish anything, you won't be too shy to tell us all about it in detail...

Have a great day... And enjoy summer vacation!

That's cool.

Maybe one day I'll let you join in on one of our Pre-IPO deals
or new construction deals or business financing deals....

You'll have to be quick though because my list snatches 'em up
in hours now....

It ain't like the good old days so I've heard

P.S. I just went into detail about how I stop top tier talent from
leaving my business... but you know everything so it doesn't matter

P.S.S. Have a great day too. I need to Load up on some more physical Gold ETFs
this Brexit thing might get uglier.
 
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21elnegocio

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Hey guys, as I have said before, I am a 16 year old who joined this forum a week or so ago. I have been absorbing all the info I can through past threads and I read one specifically, @SteveO s thread about his amazing golf course purchase. Before reading about him and a few other guys on here, I saw real estate as a slowlane that only is a fastlane for the top 1% guys in that industry like Donald Trump. Now I see it seems to be a fastlane as long as you are good and work hard at it am I correct? I have always loved to watch HGTV shows on flipping houses and such but never thought of being a real estate investor. I think I could really have a serious passion for it. My purpose behind this thread is to ask if anyone here would be willing to offer me some advice in learning the industry and what I can do now to position myself to succeed. Also, if anyone has any books or resources on the topic of real estate investing that are good and comprehensive, I would also be very appreciative.


It is definitely not a fastlane path however it does pay you good chunks of money to throw into your fastlane project ! Look up wholesaling properties, you basically end up flipping a contract for more money. I gotten really god profits from wholesale deals, one of my biggest checks up till date was $108,000 I know guys making $150,000-$400,000 on luxury homes by applying this technique. I am still trying to break into that market, it is a bit of a different monster.
 

TonyStark

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Can you make a ton of money in RE? Yes.

Is RE slower than business? Usually much slower, yes. But it's all relative.

I've watched my brother build a real estate empire much faster than I would have thought it could be done. HOWEVER- it's more of a business than just "real estate". + he's busting his a$$ it's not the passive stuff you read about from 'get rich' stuff. He's got systems, teams, a huge network now and is basically hustling 24/7(his phone is blowing up all the time- bankers, wholesalers, employees, contractors, other leads, etc) He's getting the returns he's getting because he couldn't just "outsource" to someone to get the type of deals he's getting. He's not just clicking "buy it now" on houses and collecting checks like a lot of people would want you to believe.

I know of an RE investor in Austin who raised a massive amount of capital, bought up a chunk of prime real estate in Austin, and got filthy rich in his 20s. Like, big money rich. He's one of the only ones I know of that became that level rich through real estate so fast, most other RE guys can get rich, but it's more of a grind it out and the math works out long term so you get rich game. There's nothing wrong with that game at all, it's just usually slower than business success.

I know a lot of guys who start businesses and have made a ton of money very fast, and after the start up phase it's often significantly more passive than RE(referring to biz vs RE as 'wealth growth' not preservation). For example several friends I caught up with recently who raised money and did well with their businesses, are 4-5 years into their business and are basically passive, and are already worth a LOT of money. They already reached the stage where they brought in a CEO to replace them and they can either live the 4 hour workweek, or they can go start another biz and try to build even more wealth. Don't know many RE guys who do it in anywhere near that timeframe.

You're young so it's important you understand that the goal isn't to just make the most amount of money the fastest though. I can tell you from experience that the 4 hour workweek is boring as hell. You can only travel and 'hang out' for so long before you'll want to go back to actually doing something with your life. This is important:



I can't stress this enough. You HAVE to have passion either for what you're doing, OR the end result of what it will bring you. It has to be legit value you're adding, but if you just do something because it supposedly makes more money than something else you'll eat up your life.

The more you like something, the longer you'll stick it out and the better you get. The better you get the better results you'll get, and the cycle continues. Where, if something else could have made more money but you didn't like it as much, you would have made more at the thing that would normally make less.

Why does my brother do well at RE? Because he REALLY likes the stuff he does. He's also really good at it but he's really good at it only because he was in the game long enough to get good at it, and he was only in long enough to get so good at it because he liked it a lot.

If I tried the same style of RE my brother does I wouldn't like it, so I wouldn't make the money he makes from that style of business/RE investing.

And vice versa if he tried some of the stuff I'm into he might not do as well because he wouldn't like it as much, so he wouldn't stick it out to rise above others in the space, and that's where you reap the rewards in any market, not from dabbling in what's theoretically better money than something else, but in rising to the top of a market, which can't be done without sticking it out to be better than others in that market, which usually can't be done without really enjoying what you're doing, or at minimum enjoying the end result of that(usually the former though).

You're 16, so besides that here's what I would tell you:

Find out what you want out of life. It will change in time because you don't know yourself well yet, and even if you don't intend for it to happen you'll subconsciously think you want things because of what you believe others will think of you if you do them, but if you're always as true to yourself as you can be, and you pick a certain route that gives you a chance to have those results that you want in life, and you're doing something you enjoy, you'll be on a good path. A good way to do that is to find people who have been where it is that you want to go. Ignore EVERYONE else.

Example:

If your goal was to become a successful multi family investor, find someone like SteveO and read everything he has ever written, take action and find someone like that who could help guide you along the way.

Someone else may want to teach you RE- have they been where you want to go? Doesn't matter what their website says- have they? If not, IGNORE, and stick to the plan.

The game only gets hard when you complicate things like this- chasing money, taking advice from those who talk about the game but haven't played, doing things you don't like because that's supposedly where the money is, quitting too soon if you're following these rules, etc...

Keep the game simple.
Great post! And hey another fellow Austinite! :rockon:
 
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458

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Yes but it's only quick if you raise money, consolidate your niche and then take it public. Otherwise your gonna be playing the refinance game for 10-20 years before you have a nice nest egg.
 
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458

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If you buy 12-cap properties at today's interest rates using fully-amortized loans, you should easily be able to pay them off within 10 years to achieve full cash-flow potential. If you can get control of $1M in property (which isn't too hard if you have $100-200K and some negotiating skill), that means you'll have passive $10K/month in income in 10 years.

For a typical person who wants to be an entrepreneur, I'm guessing the chances of getting to the point of $10K/month in passive income in 10 years is pretty low (I'd say 90% of the wannabe entrepreneurs I know never make it, and of the other 10%, many take longer than 10 years).

I know plenty of real estate investors and plenty of business entrepreneurs (and I've been both) -- in my experience, the likelihood of success in real estate eclipses the likelihood of success in business for the average person (which most people are).

So, the real estate avenue doesn't seem too bad...assuming you have some cash and some negotiating skills, of course...


lol, 12 cap..
 

AllenCrawley

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For a typical person who wants to be an entrepreneur, I'm guessing the chances of getting to the point of $10K/month in passive income in 10 years is pretty low (I'd say 90% of the wannabe entrepreneurs I know never make it, and of the other 10%, many take longer than 10 years).
I guess I'm not typical.
 

Envision

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Sounds like if someone could help solve that problem they would do pretty well for themselves.


When I was in Oklahoma for @Boom s real estate investor weekend there was a speaker who had created and automated a wholesaling business through a web of VA's he spent 3-5 hours per week on his business (signing documents) and he was doing 3-8 deals per month I believe.

The dude was insanely smart and had really nailed down his systems and processes. Its absolutely not easy but was probably one of the most impressive things Ive ever seen someone do/explain.

Edit: just saw @Sauce in the thread - he can vouch for it
 

CPisHere

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If you buy 12-cap properties at today's interest rates using fully-amortized loans, you should easily be able to pay them off within 10 years to achieve full cash-flow potential. If you can get control of $1M in property (which isn't too hard if you have $100-200K and some negotiating skill), that means you'll have passive $10K/month in income in 10 years.

For a typical person who wants to be an entrepreneur, I'm guessing the chances of getting to the point of $10K/month in passive income in 10 years is pretty low (I'd say 90% of the wannabe entrepreneurs I know never make it, and of the other 10%, many take longer than 10 years).

I know plenty of real estate investors and plenty of business entrepreneurs (and I've been both) -- in my experience, the likelihood of success in real estate eclipses the likelihood of success in business for the average person (which most people are).

So, the real estate avenue doesn't seem too bad...assuming you have some cash and some negotiating skills, of course...
THIS.

Real estate requires substantially less talent, but more cash, than entrepreneurship, which is why the success rate of real estate investors dwarfs that of entrepreneurs.

And that's not a dig at real estate investors.
 

NameBoat

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i have lots of friends in the realestate business who are living the good life. too bad for me i didnt have the money until the market was hot, its a tough business to jump into. but i think reward out weighs risk if you find your way. i think finding someone to shadow would be a good idea. but you can try biggerpockets .com its realestate forum lots of good info there
 
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BrandonS85

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IMO real estate can be a snail's paced slow, or blow up for someone almost as much as a hot tech startup. Blame it on the luck of the draw, or sheer skill, but in the end I think if you want to look at AVERAGE performance, real estate is the most profitable based on average skillsets.

Just in my local metropolitan area, there's over 5 billion dollars each year changing hands. Imagine a company taking 1%, 5% 10% of that money if they could find a way to capture it.

Like building websites , there's a thousand different ways to make money in real estate : Become an agent, become a broker, wholesale, flip, own rentals, finance rentals, be a note seller, be a note buyer, be a middleman for hard money, and a hundred ways to take a fee off the $175,000 per-average cost of your average RE transaction in the US.

In my case I chose to go with dumpy rentals in my little part of the world. Not because its hard or because there's 'big easy money' in it. It's more because I know the people in my area, and some day someone will have to step up to the plate and take the inventory from retiring landlords/realestate agents/investors and I want that guy to be ME and not a hedge fund or someone else. Just in my county alone the amount of rentals tied up in estates is no less than $50mm and I live in a small, somewhat rural county. Expand that to the other rural counties and it's $200mm-$300mm easily.

Now of course, that's a lifetime of work devoted to rentals, and it might be impossible, but still I think it would be fun to take a large chunk of the market out over the course of 20-30 years and use it to generate passive income once the management aspect is outsourced (And it can be outsourced!).

I've met many people who have made quick money in RE, big money too, but they also took huge risks to do it. In my case I have a family and I really don't want to put them in a cardboard box. My goal is to build a easy cashflow source of about $10k/month, THEN get into those crazy, somewhat risky investments and do them.

A guy I know flips factories. Yes, large industrial warehouses and makes a KILLING off it. One job took only 100hrs of direct management and put something like $500k in his pocket + $10k/month in residuals. Now he's trying to get a system together to do it regularly, however for most people, $500k in the bank plus $10k/month forever would be enough to retire on. This guy is trying to make a habbit of it.

Other people I run into just luck into big money in real estate, they inherit decent property, bought at the right time, sold at the right time, bought in the right place and so on. The thing is working as an agent, I've met way, way more 'lucky' people like this dealing with real estate than any other industry, so I have a feeling there's less to do with luck and more to do with math.
 

Samuriscimi

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Wholesaling real estate is a tough job. What you say above is great in theory, but I don't know many people who do it successfully over long periods of time. Most people I know who try end up never seeing a first payday...and when you're working with commercial RE, you're dealing with more sophisticated buyers and sellers, so plan to work for a couple years learning the industry before you expect to make much/any money.

Here's the thing with real estate -- unless you are generating recurring income from the underlying asset, you're going to find that all you have is a job. Potentially a lucrative job (I've flipped 200+ houses and made a lot of money doing it), but a job nonetheless (if all I did was flipping, the day I stopped would be the day I stopped making money). That's the problem with flipping houses or wholesaling or any other active real estate strategy -- the day you decide to stop sourcing deals, the income stops. Also, it's very difficult to scale a real estate business for most people, it's very difficult to put a real estate business on auto-pilot, and you'll almost certainly never start an active real estate business that you can sell.

My advice to anyone who wants to get rich in real estate: Find an active source of income (could also be real estate, like flipping houses) and then plow all the profits into buying and holding assets. Take your time, consistently work to build a portfolio and in a few years/decades (depending on your effort/success/goals), you'll find that your real estate is paying you enough that you can focus on other things.

Question here:
I've been researching real estate investing methods for a while- I'm chomping at the bit to start buying properties.

However, to really get involved and know investors, whole salers, property managers and contractors, I think I need to work in the field for a little and hover until I can find a good deal to get started.

So I'd like to start a small active real-estate related business. I want to start a product managing business to meet local investors and know what's happening with local houses. But I'm open to other suggestions.

What other needs do investors have that can be met with a small active business?

thanks guys
 

Samuriscimi

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Can you make a ton of money in RE? Yes.

Is RE slower than business? Usually much slower, yes. But it's all relative.

I've watched my brother build a real estate empire much faster than I would have thought it could be done. HOWEVER- it's more of a business than just "real estate". + he's busting his a$$ it's not the passive stuff you read about from 'get rich' stuff. He's got systems, teams, a huge network now and is basically hustling 24/7(his phone is blowing up all the time- bankers, wholesalers, employees, contractors, other leads, etc) He's getting the returns he's getting because he couldn't just "outsource" to someone to get the type of deals he's getting. He's not just clicking "buy it now" on houses and collecting checks like a lot of people would want you to believe.

I know of an RE investor in Austin who raised a massive amount of capital, bought up a chunk of prime real estate in Austin, and got filthy rich in his 20s. Like, big money rich. He's one of the only ones I know of that became that level rich through real estate so fast, most other RE guys can get rich, but it's more of a grind it out and the math works out long term so you get rich game. There's nothing wrong with that game at all, it's just usually slower than business success.

I know a lot of guys who start businesses and have made a ton of money very fast, and after the start up phase it's often significantly more passive than RE(referring to biz vs RE as 'wealth growth' not preservation). For example several friends I caught up with recently who raised money and did well with their businesses, are 4-5 years into their business and are basically passive, and are already worth a LOT of money. They already reached the stage where they brought in a CEO to replace them and they can either live the 4 hour workweek, or they can go start another biz and try to build even more wealth. Don't know many RE guys who do it in anywhere near that timeframe.

You're young so it's important you understand that the goal isn't to just make the most amount of money the fastest though. I can tell you from experience that the 4 hour workweek is boring as hell. You can only travel and 'hang out' for so long before you'll want to go back to actually doing something with your life. This is important:



I can't stress this enough. You HAVE to have passion either for what you're doing, OR the end result of what it will bring you. It has to be legit value you're adding, but if you just do something because it supposedly makes more money than something else you'll eat up your life.

The more you like something, the longer you'll stick it out and the better you get. The better you get the better results you'll get, and the cycle continues. Where, if something else could have made more money but you didn't like it as much, you would have made more at the thing that would normally make less.

Why does my brother do well at RE? Because he REALLY likes the stuff he does. He's also really good at it but he's really good at it only because he was in the game long enough to get good at it, and he was only in long enough to get so good at it because he liked it a lot.

If I tried the same style of RE my brother does I wouldn't like it, so I wouldn't make the money he makes from that style of business/RE investing.

And vice versa if he tried some of the stuff I'm into he might not do as well because he wouldn't like it as much, so he wouldn't stick it out to rise above others in the space, and that's where you reap the rewards in any market, not from dabbling in what's theoretically better money than something else, but in rising to the top of a market, which can't be done without sticking it out to be better than others in that market, which usually can't be done without really enjoying what you're doing, or at minimum enjoying the end result of that(usually the former though).

You're 16, so besides that here's what I would tell you:

Find out what you want out of life. It will change in time because you don't know yourself well yet, and even if you don't intend for it to happen you'll subconsciously think you want things because of what you believe others will think of you if you do them, but if you're always as true to yourself as you can be, and you pick a certain route that gives you a chance to have those results that you want in life, and you're doing something you enjoy, you'll be on a good path. A good way to do that is to find people who have been where it is that you want to go. Ignore EVERYONE else.

Example:

If your goal was to become a successful multi family investor, find someone like SteveO and read everything he has ever written, take action and find someone like that who could help guide you along the way.

Someone else may want to teach you RE- have they been where you want to go? Doesn't matter what their website says- have they? If not, IGNORE, and stick to the plan.

The game only gets hard when you complicate things like this- chasing money, taking advice from those who talk about the game but haven't played, doing things you don't like because that's supposedly where the money is, quitting too soon if you're following these rules, etc...

Keep the game simple.


Your brother's doing exactly what I want to do.

How did he get started?
He's not on this site, is he?
 
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