New and learning in Kansas City

[Devin Warrington]

Hello, everyone! I want to introduce myself and seek the wisdom of the community. I'm working a full time IT job in Kansas City. I'm in my mid-40s and my goal is to be able to retire in about 5 years. I've done good with saving, and I have most of my money invested in mutual funds. I'm just leery of counting on that for all my income, since I'm expecting a big stock market downturn here at some point. I'll keep money in my current investments, but I'd like to diversify. I have no debt and I own a single family home. I am not looking for another job, but I understand anything I do will require some investment in time up front. It just needs to be something I can do while working a full time job, and I'd like it to become mostly passive.

I've recently become interested in the possibility of real estate investing and have started listening to lot of the old Bigger Pockets podcasts. I've also started doing some reading on this forum. I'm just at the beginning of my learning and have barely scratched the surface of consuming the wealth of information that Bigger Pockets has to offer.

My original thought was to purchase houses for rental and hire a property management company to make that mostly passive. In my reading and listening so far, the idea of buying discounted notes has also interested me. And I've also thought about being a private lender. I can pull some money out of my current investments to put toward these efforts. I am looking for something fairly safe that produces cash flow. Of course, I realize all investment carries risk.

I would say my strengths include financial acumen, analytical abilities, project management, and IT skills. I do not have experience with construction. I'm not a skilled handyman. My only experience in real estate is buying my house and selling my parents' house.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Devin