How did YOU retire?! Share your Stories!

Question

Hi! my name is Ryan. I am 21 years old and am relatively new to the real estate investing community. I eventually want to retire from my job and invest in real estate full time so that i can finally do the things i want to do in life. Anyway, I was wondering how some of you were able to retire and live the life you have always dreamed? What strategies did you implement to enable you to retire? Is anyone living full time off rental cash flow? How did you go about building cash flow and passive income? Thanks for replying!!

Dawn Anastasi · Answer

If you still have a job, even in real estate, you are not really "retired".  However I think you mean you want to be your own boss, and quit your day job.  Depending on what you invest in, more or less of your time is taken up.  To make money, you generally need to do SOMETHING.

For example if you are a landlord, you still need to either manage the properties or work with a property management company.  If you are doing self-management, this means you are doing a whole host of things:
- Finding properties
- Buying properties
- Fixing them up in order to rent them out
- Learning/studying the landlord tenant laws in your area
- Getting a good lease drawn up
- Advertising/marketing your property
- Meeting with prospective tenants
- Doing background/credit checks
- Making repairs
- Collecting rent
- Dealing with tenant move outs (and hopefully not evictions)

A more passive method would be to become a lender yourself.  You can lend money out, and collect payments; this is more passive but still gives you can income flow.

There are many other ways of investing in real estate as well.  There are tons of articles on Bigger Pockets; one good thing to do is read all you can and determine which way you want to go.  Keep in mind you don't have to pick just one method, some people engage in different things -- some settling on just one method, other keep things diversified.