Young people - start today
I've read about real estate investing for probably 15 years. It always intrigued me, but I never took any action. Now at 35 years old I've got my first rental property under contract.
Things would be so much different if I was a single guy, able to make all the decisions with no input from others. But, as a husband and father of two, I don't have the luxury of making all the sacrifices that I would like to make.
Currently we live in a house we bought for $180,000 that is currently worth $200,000. My payment is $1100 per month and houses in my neighborhood rent for at least $1600. If I were a single guy I would look into renting 3 of the 4 bedrooms to cover my mortgage. We do have rooms that aren't being used since my two kids prefer to share a room, but I wouldn't even consider having strangers in my house around my wife and two girls.
I've tried talking the wife into buying a camper and living in it temporarily while we rent our house out and save aggressively. I've tried talking to her about moving into a condo almost half the size of our house, and the difference between rent and our house payment would almost cover the condo payment.
None of these things are appealing to her, and since her vote counts just as much as mine, I can't force any of it on her. I'm not a guy that has a lot of patience to sit around and wait for things to happen, but I'm going to have to do this the slow and steady way. I can only cut the budget so much with the wife and kids. There is always something going on that requires money. I've always been more of the spender than she has anyway, so there are some things I'm doing to reign that in.
After reading Set For Life I was amped up to cut spending in the areas of our life where we spend the most money, but I haven't been able to find a good compromise that the wife can live with. So I'll cut where I can and continue to save money slowly.
I blame myself for not taking action much earlier in life when I had the ability to make all the decisions alone. My household income is approximately $80,000 more right now than back when I was a single guy just learning about real estate investing. I didn't have a lot of money to invest, but if I had only gotten into house hacking back then, there is no telling where I would be financially today.