Building my rental empire

[Andrew Nugent]

I am in the last semester of my senior year and I just recently purchased property in the college town I've been living in. I plan to live in this property and have my friends live with me paying my monthly mortgage so I can live rent free. My goal is to own  3 rental properties by the time I turn 25. What steps or strategies should I consider in order to achieve my goal?

[Jake Thomas]

Make sure you get out of consumer debt or stay out of consumer debt. This will stop you from being able to save like you should. I started like you buying a house and renting all the rooms out and it worked well. If I could do it all over again after one year I would have gone and bought another property and do the same thing while making the original property a straight rental. As long as you make the property your primary you can use lower money down techniques like FHA one one property then 3-5% conventional loan on the next property and so on. Once you attempt to buy a straight investment/non owner occupied you will need a minimum of 20-25% down. This is why I said you need to stay out of consumer debt, once you get to that point you need lots of cash to move up.

Good luck