BiggerPockets

Welcome to BiggerPockets. "Large" is a subjective term and it is also relative to the different investment options out there. Are you interested in a 6-figure capital outlay or 7 or more figures?

Avoiding the more personal information of exact figures, what are your interests in RE investing? Do you want to be a landlord (own properties and rent to tenants) and if so, residential or commercial?
Do you want to be passive or very hands on?
Are you interested in working with desperate homeowners in potential foreclosure trouble? Are you shy, outgoing, a leader, or what?
Tell us a bit more and then we will have more info to direct you to the right path.

Will B
Nationwide

Hi Will,
I wouldn't call myself shy but i'm not naive either i'm young I don't know everything and I just want to learn, therefor I dont think commercial property is something I would like to get into right now might be over my head. That said I am very hands on, but I dont want a property that is extremely time consuming, my fiance is a commercial builder so he has all the construction connections and know how to do a flip but i'm not sure what type, should I rehab and hold? should I buy one property with my large DP or leverage that to buy a few. I'd like multi rentals, I'm in the New Orleans area but I don't know how I feel about section 8, this will be my first investment and my first experience as a landlord so I just want to play it smart with what i've got!

As far as direction goes, you need to feel comfortable with your strategy and sounds like residential is the way to go.

I believe, since your pursuing CPA licensing, you should approach RE investing as second business. As a CPA, you will have many opportunites in the years to come to add to your RE portfolio as deals will undoubtedly come across your desk.

With that said, I believe a good strategy is diversification. Invest in small multi-families and SFR's for cash flow and quality properties with good locations that will appreicate at a higher rate.

I buy and hold and I actually buy both low-end multi's and SFR's and high quality properties with great locations. Since I believe we are headed for and asset bubble in 5 to 7 years, we will see higher-end properties properties appreciate again. My bread and butter cash flow properties will not appreciate as much, but will keep on bringing that all important cash flow.

Since your educated in finance, I believe there will be huge opportunites in commerical properties within the next year or so and you might consider small office buildings as well.

Anyway, good luck in your endeavors

Sitting on cash is a losing effort as you are losing to inflation, just the same as others who invest in CD's. That 3%-4% return is a loser, especially after you factor in taxes.

I would suggest finding an experienced investor to work with who invests in what interests you (possibly a buy and hold or even a rehab flip with your connections). You can bring some cash to the table ($50k) and the investor can bring the experience and their connections. May be a win win for both.

In a buy and hold scenario, you are young so you have time. If you were to buy 3 doors per year for the next 15 years, you would end up with 45 rentals at the 15 year mark. That could amount to a nice side income via cash flow, plus the tax deductions and the principle reductions.

You can also incorproate some rehab flips to gain more cash to buy more rentals. Bottom line these days is the difficulty factor in obtaining traditional financing. I try to avoid it at all costs and am willing to pay higher interest rates (10% or more) for the ease or private money.

If you truely want passive income from the cash, you could become a private investor, although $50k is not that much, it is a start at your age. You should get at least 10% on that ($5k per year) and grwo it quite fast over the next few years.

I would not partner with another investor in your case because there is not enough money to create meaningful profits for two people

Hi Jennifer, and welcome to BP!

As you can figure out pretty fast, the members here are very helpful with someone like yourself that wants to make it happen.

The more information you can share about yourself, the better direction you will get from experienced investors. If you reread Will Barnard's advice, it is very solid.

Welcome again, and look forward to hearing about the endeavors.

-Matt

You should consider doing some coaching with a Real Estate specific coaching company. There are a lot out there and they really can give you both advice and education. The only thing is don't spend all of the money on the education part.

Good luck!

Stay away from "coaches and gurus." They will make shrink your 50k until "there is not enough money to create meaningful profits for two people."

Have you joined a local REIA group? You can find other investors who are successful and become friends with them. Then you can ask them questions, get help from them and best of all it'll be FREE except for the initial membership cost.

Ned Carey who's on BP does tax sale believe and he's got a blog Baltimore real estate investing, so you may want to search him out.