5% down then living and buying new place each year advice

[Gary Love]

First, thanks in advance for any advice. Love this site!! We live just outside of Columbus, OH in a duplex we bought seven years ago. Would like to move to the Jacksonville, FL area. Maybe the Tampa but not relevant to this question. We have 100k equity in our place and 50K cash on hand. Would rather not tap into equity. We were thinking put down 5% on a new home, move in and then do the same each year and rent out the previous house. In hopes of accumulating many properties faster. The Ohio place cash flows 1k per month after everything including property management which gives us some cushion. Besides the PMI and higher payment, is this a bad idea? If so why? It may be tough to cash flow these first few houses until rent goes up some of course but if we can get it close we can absorb that for a while. Again thanks for any tips and just taking the time. Still learning so much. Gary

[Joseph Stern]

Gary, this a great idea. It is one of the best paths to wealth, purchasing a new primary residence each year and retaining the other properties as rentals. It is a very calculated and stable way to grow your portfolio, you can even put 3% down. There are still plenty of properties that cash flow in both those markets so you should not have an issue with that, my only tip would be perhaps live in each property two of out of five years to avoid the capital gain when you eventually sell. You can compare if the appreciation on a property every year would make more sense than the tax savings you would get by buying every two years. Either way, if you have enough capex reserves for each property and have the management systems in place to handle the amount of doors, I would go for it. You may start seeing over time it would be faster to scale by buying larger properties but that all depends on your personal investing strategy and lifestyle.