Newbie With Inherited Property

[Niko Rossley]

I just inherited a house paid off worth 400k. How can I leverage that to make money and start an investment portfolio? It also seems like people put property in LLC's. I'm in California

Also recommended courses plz

[Travis Timmons]

If you inherited the property, I'd suggest selling it (with step up basis) pretty much tax free, toss it into an index fund, and forget it is there. The dirty secret that most people here don't want to say out loud here is that index fund investing returns the same or better than most real estate without any of the hassle. 

Here's a fun stat - a 9% annual return, which is reasonable if you re-invest dividends, gets 8x your initial investment in 24 years. I don't know how old you are, how bad you need income, or any other factors, but you need to fight the feeling that you "need to do something with this money." Real estate is far more active and gives a greater sense of accomplishment, but the market is ugly right now. Unless you want to take on heavy rehabs or house hack, I just don't think that it is worth it. Even short term rentals don't actually cash flow in most markets...you can make it look good on paper, but end of year actual numbers do not cash flow until probably year 3. And even then, it's pretty meager. Take the tax free cash, let compound interest do its thing, and forget that it is there.  

And don't pay for a course.