Early retirement... Is it possible?
Is it possible? Well, I sure hope so! I will be blogging about my goal to retire early...This being said...I will post a goal year here and now, my goal....be able to retire by 2015.
I have to start by telling you about myself and some relevant information in an attempt to get you up to speed to where I stand today. My name is Ana Hyler and I'm 39 years old. I live in Lincoln NE. married and 5 kids. My husband and I work full time jobs in corporate America and we also invest in real estate mostly in rentals but some flips here and there. We moved to Lincoln almost 8 years ago and bought our first property 5 years ago.We currenly own 19 rental doors !
Yes, 19 rental doors. I remember we used to think if we could only have 15 to 20 rentals... we would be covered and could retire then... well reality is...with that number of units we also acquired quite a bit of debt. When people mention with some surprise and let's face it...with some envy the fact that we should be getting a good amount of cashflow from our rentals, I usually reply with a YES and ask..."would you like us to also show you our bills?".
Our first deal was a house in Kansas in 2005. We bought the property sight unseen...and it took us 1 whole year to renovate it...we did most of the work ourselves and we learned soooo much. We traveled every weekend and put at least 20 hours work per weekend the whole year and remember...we live in Lincoln, so on top of all the work we had to drive 3 hours there and 3 hours back! All this after working all week in our regular jobs and at the time, my husband was also going to school ! All the work was really worth it and it left a sweet taste in our pockets! At that point...we were hooked !
I will continue to blog and tell my story. This is it for now....I really just wanted to get started. I hope my experiences are an inspiration to many and I want to make sure I tell as many details as I can, so this blog becomes a learning tool. Untill next time.
Comments (5)
Great blog Ana, I look forward to reading more about your journey! :)
Rachel H., over 13 years ago
Glad to hear about your goal to retire early. I have to say it is well worth the effort you will go through to get there. I retired at 39 myself because of my rental income so I've been where you are now. The very best thing for me about being retired at 39 is the amount of time I have been able to spend with my kids. so many people don't get to retire until after their kids are grown and out of the house. Obviously, there are a few things you can do to push up your retirement date...which I'm sure you are already doing or looking at. Reduce expenses, increase the cash flow from your properties, and buy multi-unit properties to jump up your income faster. I know one of the properties I bought that really put me where I needed to be to retire was a 14 unit. It cost me $50.00 out of my pocket as I financed the rest and it clears more than 2,000 a month. My tenants are also all on maintenance agreements where they are responsible for minor repairs which helped to increase the cash flow from each property. Anyway, good luck on the goal. I know it can be done so don't give up.
Shawn Parsh, over 13 years ago
Charles, that is exactly right...rental properties are great long term investments! Jon, I will try and answer every question in future blogs. :)
Ana Hyler, over 13 years ago
Ana, I'm also really looking forward to your blog on chasing early retirement. Do you plan to pay off all the RE investment debt by 2015, too? Do you have retirement savings other than real estate? Do you plan to pay for some or all of your kids college? Please feel free to answer questions in future blog posts and not necessarily here and now. Thanks!
Jon Klaus, over 13 years ago
Look forward to the rest of the story .... Amazing how many people when they learn you own rental properties think you must be filthy rich. The reality is not what it seems. You can do very well in RE, but it takes time, work and patience.
Account Closed, over 13 years ago