Never too old to invest in Real Estate?

The house has a crooked front porch step and looks wonkie. The inside smells bad. It's a two bedroom one bath with the worst floor plan. You'd think it hard to mess up 750 square feet of house but they acheived it. You go through the master bedroom to get to the kitchen and only bathroom. It sits on an acre of land and has a cistern style  septic. The owner wants 49K. Not happening. But I'm intrigued by the homes possibilities. Still the numbers don't work.

At 55 most of my family think I'm crazy. To me expecting my w2 job and 401K to keep me anywhere near a decent retirement is a joke. I could live for 40 more years but not on what I make and have saved. This is my passive income journey into retirement,

This is East TN and housing is at a premium. There are bulldozers and cranes everywhere. The building is on a major up swing. Lots of manufacturing is expanding here and there's very few apartment complexes or house's for rent. So what are they building? Huge houses no manufacturing worker could ever afford. 

Then there's this little 2 bedroom two bath house that sits on an acre. I walk away from it. and a year later it still hadn't sold.  Owner had two other buyers back out. So I low ball it. $25k. Owner counters $27.5K. Which is the exact cost of the land. I buy it. I'm now the proud owner of what the family calls my She Shack.

I paid cash in an unconventional way. I used an old 401k that was rolled over into an IRA. Part of it was a Roth part was Traditional. Yep I got taxed and penalized but the money was making nothing due to the choices of funds I was able to use in the 401k.  In my mind it was the cost of getting the property and not paying any holding fees while I rehabbed it. 

This project has been an excellent learning adventure. I've been loving it. I'll post pics and updates. 

As a disclaimer I don't recommend folks use their 401k without thinking through all the implications. I do have another 401k with my current employer.