What is a Landlord on FIRE?

Financial Independence to Retire Early (FI/RE). Real Estate Investing to Supercharge the FIRE journey. 

Real Estate:  I wanted to learn new skills, and DIY the maintenance projects around my home.  7 homes later (5 sold for large profits, 1 breakeven, 1 loss), I have some idea on what it takes to make changes to your own home to make it more livable, enjoyable, and ultimately to bring better returns when you sell it.

I started by watching This Old House on PBS.  A LOT... every season since the premiere.  Then Ask This Old House.  I started performing some of the upgrades I saw there on my own home(s).  I found myself living in homes for 2-to-5 years, and reselling them for 2x what I paid for them.  West coast homes, yes - so location played a LARGE PART in their increasing valuation over the years.  The 5 sold for profits were all in the Pacific Northwest around Seattle.

When I tried to start flipping houses like William Nickerson wrote about in "How I made $5 in my spare time"... it was 2007, and just in time for the largest real estate bust in decades.  I learned EVEN MORE - the hard way - and persevered...

By 2014 I was a homeowner again, and interested in housing, but I found it next to impossible to find good deals in the Seattle RE market.  Instead, I focused on the 'saving' end of FIRE, and starting reading MrMoneyMustache.com - starting with "Start Here'.  Read his blog posts from the beginning.  Those first 2+ years contain a goldmine of information on how to save FU money, and retire early. 

But it wasn't enough... I was no longer 20, 30, or 40.  I was over 50, and wanted to Supercharge my path to FIRE.  I had a high paying job, but hated working for "The Man".  What to do?  I was lucky enough to attend an annual FIRE seminar put on for ~50 attendees called Camp Mustache.  There, I met new friends, discovered new tricks to enhance FIRE, and learned new techniques.  Real Estate came up, naturally...  I groaned - did NOT want to go through 2007-2010 again.  

The ideas that grabbed me were Buying and Selling Mortgage Notes (something I haven't yet done - not enough time), credit card travel hacking, and Out-Of-State Real Estate Investing.  The idea of hiring a TEAM in your target state to find, purchase, rehab, rent, properties (then refinance, and repeat) had never occurred to me.  [Well... it had, but my mind was stuck in the "vacation home / beach property" mindset].  I realized I had some reading to do before I tried buying / reselling homes again, and certainly before becoming a property manager / landlord....

Resources mentioned:
1. MMM - https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/

2. William Nickerson - https://www.amazon.com/Turned-...  (today I would NOT start with this resource - while the content is GREAT, the book is too expensive. There are better find, fix and resell or rent books out there today)

3. This Old House / Ask This Old House -  https://www.pbs.org/show/old-h...