It\u2019s hard to imagine now how hard it was to save up that initial $5,000 to buy my first rental property back in 1989. I bought a duplex, which was owner occupied in the traditional way.<\/p>\n
Just like many of those starting out in real estate investing, my goals were very modest at the time. In fact, I just wanted the tenant who happened to live above me (which by the way isn\u2019t the greatest idea) to pay half of my mortgage. Shortly thereafter, my goal grew to saving up enough money from my second job to buy just one rental property a year. It wasn\u2019t until I got to 10 or so units that I started to broaden my goal to replacing my income.<\/p>\n
Today, I look back to how funny my strategies and goals really were back then. I would never even think about saving up money today to use to invest in real estate. I would just go find a good deal and use OPM (other people\u2019s money).<\/p>\n
But to be quite honest, it doesn\u2019t matter how my real estate portfolio started. What really matters is that I did it, that I continue to grow it, and that I became better and better in real estate investing as time went on. I continued to cultivate my portfolio over the years, and there were some significant benefits from doing so, and by that I\u2019m not necessarily talking about the normal stuff people think of like: depreciation, mortgage interest deductions, and various repair and maintenance expenses, or the fact that your tenants are buying your properties for you.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m talking about some of the other not-so-obvious benefits of passive real estate investing.<\/p>\n
If it wasn\u2019t for the fact that I got up to 20 rental units, which made my net cash flow equal to my take-home pay at my day job, it may have been much harder to quit my “Corporate America” job, especially since I had a wife and two kids to support at the time. But this one\u2019s a biggie, and for me, I was 32 years old when I told my boss,\u201cI\u2019m outta here!\u201d<\/p>\n