BiggerPockets

Alan - you don't provide enough information to answer this question.

1. Do you have any cash/safety?
2. Do you have RE experience?

You might want to find a career in the real estate field. Working as an agent, lender or for a company already flipping properties.

There are two things to consider.

The first is the opportunity cost. By working full time, what are you giving up in terms of your investment proceeds. Are you only able to flip 3 homes a year instead of 6, 8, or 10? Are you only able to buy homes at a discount of 20% instead of 35 or 40%? Are your holding times 6 months instead of 4? Etc, etc, etc. Quantify the "expense" of your job. Then look at the value of your job. Generally there's a salary... how much would it cost to replace health insurance? How much is the unemployment/disability safety net worth to you? Do they offer 401k matching? Your benefit package from a good job often goes far beyond just the salary, so make sure you look at the whole picture. Then compare the two numbers.

The second is a quality of life issue. If you "LOVE" doing real estate and having dirty finger nails and "HATE" sitting at a desk, maybe it's worth it to you to accept a lower compensation to be a flipper full time. Or you may find that the intellectual stimulation of a certain job may be more enjoyable than managing subcontractors all day, in that case it might make flipping full time less attractive. You have to decide.

Life isn't just about dollars and cents. Look at which one is going to leave you happier and more fulfilled, go from there.

You can quit your full time job anytime you want or never even start one for that matter. It boils down to your comfort level. I am a relatively new investor and work the 9-5 as well. I could quit my day job right now and probably become a pretty successful RE investor over the next 1-2 years. I also think I can keep my day job and become a successful RE investor over the next 2-3 years. So instead of scraping by and living below my means for a year, I'm choosing to deal with the hassle of essentially working 2 jobs.

I choose to do this as I would like to maintain my current life-style. It's all about your personal preference. For me, working for the man just so happens to pay a hell of a lot better than RE currently does. But I'll tell you this, coming into work every day becomes a lot easier with the end in sight. If I thought I'd be stuck in this office for the next 40 years, I'd probably have my nose up my bosses ass like everybody else I work with.

If you are strictly doing flipping, this can be a very tough thing to determine. You may be able to flip a few houses without a full-time job to support them, but what are you going to do when you buy that house with a few extra problems that you didn't budget for? What if that house is also having a hard time selling because a couple others on the block went into forecloseure after you purchased it? You need to make sure you have enough money socked away in savings to pay for these things or have some other source of income until you can afford these types of setbacks on your own.

Great response Nathan.

I am not saying its all luck. And I am a strong believer that luck presents itself to those who work hard more so than to those that don't. I enjoy my job most days. Yeah, I work hard, and given my druthers, I'd probably rather go mountain biking for "fun", but I could certainly think of worse ways to earn a living and have done many types of work in the past that I did just for the money - not because I enjoyed it - and it sucked.

I have enjoyed my involvement in RE so far. I am not doing it just for the money either. Now, I don't work as hard in RE as a full time RE investor, but when I couple it with my full time job and my part time studies toward my master's degree (one to two classes a semester), it is a lot of work. And to me, it is "fun". I guess part of "fun" for me is the satisfaction I get from doing certain things a certain way. Some define it as partying with friends. That can be fun in moderation, too.

The fact that you do RE all day and still participate in this online forum indicate to me that you might enjoy what you are doing more than you are leading on, too.

I'm not interested in any kind of hard just or the sake of hard work and a buck. I thing you SHOULD enjoy your job, career whatever you do, if you can.

Call it luck, chance, circumstance, whatever you want, but most people have unique experiences in life and more people fail to capitalize on those unique opportunities than succeed. That goes for hard working people and lazy people. Maybe it has to do with creativity of a sort.

Thank you guys for all the great responses!

I agree with most of you about balancing a job and real estate investing. I do feel that by having a job it also provides a sense of security that I can maintain my current living expenses.

I'm currently living with my parents and I want to work a job in the meantime so I'm not a huge burden to them. At the same time, a part of my wants to just flip full-time considering how 1 or 2 flips can provide more than what I can earn from a job, especially when the salary isn't very high for inexperience/fresh-out of college individual like myself.

Currently, I'm about to finish up my three 45-hour real estate courses to qualify for the salespersons license exam. After I get my license, I'm really hoping to get started with my first flip deal!

Alan, I went with dons advice... Go for it before you have a wife kids, a mother in law to take care of lol...quit my job and jumped into it full time...I was broke for a long time but now seem to be doing better than most people my age... Not that I need to compete... Just letting you know it's possible after a few years of budgeting, discipline and 80 hour plus work weeks... To me it was worth it. .. I still live on less than 1000 a month.. The rest goes into the business...there's a post on here where I admitted to living in someones closet for a year... Most thought I was an idiot or a bum... Or possibly both.. Lol... I could care less....it saved me a ton of money that I used to get a loan and flip a house where I made 45k... Not bad for a bum. :)

Wanted to add that I did rent out and pay for the closet space... So im not a complete bum... And it was a walk in closet! :)

justin brings up a good point..don't just jump in blind :)

read up on BP...get your money and your farm area down..be prepared...and then be sure you're willing to sacrifice all your tim--and yes, even live in a closet for a while to save money if you had to..if you want it that bad, you just may succeed...good luck :)

Adrian I believe I posted on this before but I did it for about a year and a half...don't want to get this post off topic but feel free to pm me if you have any questions