Good point.

I am working on getting my children to follow this plan and start whilst they are young.

Happy New Year!

I know of someone who tried real estate and decided early on he didn’t want to deal with people issues… so he bought a coin-op laundry mat and eventually owned several by retirement.

Same principle, different vehicle

Excellent article.

Many people say that being a landlord is hard work and not eveyone is suited for it. I think it’s more a matter of motivation than of ability. If you keep your mind fixed on the reward of steady, and usually increasing, income over the course of your life, that provides pretty good motivation.

Can I learn to deal with tenants if it provides me with financial security for my family and I? If the choice is learning people management skills and financial security vs. not learning people management skills and financial struggles, the choice is simple.

1. I agree that relying on only one source of income is risky… and that includes only having rental property.
2. There is nothing wrong with working for someone else for that steady paycheck and accumulating property at the same time. That’s diversification of income, too.
3. Education, living within your means and owning your home in retirement or before are also not bad concepts in themselves. Although we look at the people who lived through the depression era as having outdated concepts, in our over-leveraged society, I think we also need to practice temperance.
4. I agree with you that accumumulating properties can be a great souce of current and retirement income… but investors also need to be cautious for a number of reasons: For example, owning rental properties/landlording is a business. Some people like it and some hate it. It’s the weekend before Christmas and a tenant has already called me with a question. Last year on New Year’s Eve, the hot water heater for a four unit building I own broke down. Now multiply that by 10 properties…
5.. The RISKS in owning properties is one that individuals need to understand: legal, time, cash flow, personal, financial, mental, etc.
7. Economically, it is difficult for most people to save for that downpayment. I agree that there are ways to do it (tax return refunds, etc) but most people DON’T live within their means already, which poses a risk and a barrier to them not being able to save for the downpayment. And, although I show people how to buy with little or no money down, they have to make sure they are buying with built in equity or they will be too leveraged.

With that said, I absolutely agree with the author of this article that people who can, should step outside of the box and their comfort zone and try to push the envelope a little bit at a time to better their lives. Personally, I think real estate is a great path for many of us. It is one of the great “levelers”… meaning you can be a doctor, a high school dropout, or your average Joe and ALL of us have essentially a level playing field for making money in this business. There are few educational barriers to getting in… so you don’t need a college education, and you don’t need a degree. But, like anything else, you still need constant education on your real estate business… on laws, management, and the real estate market.

A landlording business is not easy, but if you are willing to treat it like a business and work at it, you might just find that it’s worth the effort. My cautions above are only to serve the reader with things they need to consider in the process…

Steven Boorstein
Landlord Business Insider