Do you invest in real estate?

I often hear about real estate investors building property portfolios and eventually quit their 9-5 jobs as they scale up. You’ll see that most these individual investors don’t come from finance backgrounds which I found intriguing considering how you need a decent amount of capital to get into RE to begin with.

Do you currently or eventually want to invest in real estate or do you mostly stick with mutual funds, etfs and bonds? How about purchasing shares in syndicated re investments? Wondering what your thoughts are.

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When I was in banking, there were a couple of us in the bullpen who were into RE investing. imo it can be one of the best or worst things to do while in banking. The returns can be lucrative, but there's so much that can go wrong. Of course, the best way to learn this is to just do your first deal. The issue is banking isn't the ideal environment to do some trial-by-fire RE investing. For that reason, I waited until after banking to start investing in SFH rentals. The returns can be insane, and you can get started with turnkey properties in the midwest for like $15-20K down. 

If you're looking to get started, I would suggest finding a mentor (and by "mentor" I don't mean some rando off TikTok charging $5K for their "masterclass") who will help guide you through your first deal, from sourcing to negotiating to finding a good property manager and contractor. It's definitely doable while also working in banking, but completely up to you if you think you can handle any headaches that come with RE investing on top of your day job.

In terms of other investment options, I think of it this way: the more hands-off, the less lucrative the returns (usually), and the longer it will take to build a portfolio that is passively(ish) printing cash. 

Hope that's somewhat helpful.

 

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