The 3 Types of Real Estate “Retirement”

Each week, we post a new question to the Best Ever Show Community on Facebook. The Best Ever Show Community is a place where real estate entrepreneurs of all stripes and sizes can come together to interact with each other, me, and the guests featured on my podcast with the purpose of everyone helping each other reach the next level in their businesses and their lives.

What better way to add value than to ask you, the community, for your Best Ever advice on a variety of different real estate topics. This week, the question was “how much do you need/want to retire?”

Of course, this question implies that real estate investors actually WANT to retire, and based on the responses, this is definitely not the case. In fact, real estate investor’s views on retirement can be broken into three categories: 1) I will never retire for investing, 2) I want $X in order to retire and 3) If I reach my financial goals, I will shift my focus to other work.

When I asked the Best Ever Community why they initially became interested in real estate, only one response was loosely associated with retirement, which was the desire for financial freedom. Besides the correlation between early retirement and death, I think this is because individuals with a strong entrepreneurial spirit are attracted to real estate, and this spirit seems to never taper off or disappear. In fact, once people get a taste of real estate success, this entrepreneurial drive may even intensify!

That being said, the poll is closed and here are your responses:

Death is My Retirement

The most common response was that the investor planned on NEVER retiring. Dan Hanford sarcastically quipped that he didn’t even know what “retire” meant. Matthew Seaton, while wanting a bare minimum of $1 million by the age of 57, would prefer to continue working indefinitely, as the concept of traditional retirement sounds boring and outdated.

Dave Roberts needs 10 gazillion dollars in order to retire. This, I assume, implies that he doesn’t plan on ever retiring either – as a gazillion isn’t a real number J.

Jeremy Brown kind of specified a dollar figure that he wants to retire, which is three times what he is making now. However, every time his income increases, his goal of “three times what I am making now” remains the same. Scaling in real estate investing and achieving your targets will definitely do that to you!

For both Charlie Kao and Stone Teran to retire, it will have to be over their dead bodies – LITERALLY. Charlie envisions himself eventually reducing his working hours, but he will remain in the real estate game until his children bury him. Stone doesn’t have a magic number either. He plans on working until he dies, but with the expectation of working less hours and less strenuously as he gets older.

I’ll Take the Cash

One investor specified a dollar figure he would need in order to retire. Eric Kottner wants a net worth of $2.5 million and $250,000 per year in passive income by the time he turns 45. However, he didn’t specify if he would continue expanding from there, shift his focus to other entrepreneurial endeavors or enjoy a traditional retirement.

Shift in Focus

The third category of retirement is when an investor hits a specified “retirement number,” but rather than setting off into the sunset, they give themselves the permission to shift their focus to something else.

Melvin Music wants $1,000 per day for the rest of his life. It is more than he needs, but he wants that amounts so that he can “do a lot of good and help out a lot of folks.”

Neil Henderson’s bare minimum number is $700,000, assuming his personal residence is paid off and he doesn’t hold bad debt. At that point, he would work to maintain his business, but it would also open up a world of possibilities that would allow him to take greater risks.

Lia Martinez wants $5,000 per month, which she is on pace to achieve by August 2018. Outstanding! Then, her plan is to move to Peru and shift her focus to other work while maintaining her current real estate portfolio.

Julia Bykhovskaia, having a go big or go home mentality, wants a net worth of $20 million and a passive income of $500,000. Her reasoning for this goal is not to achieve it and be idle. It is because she wants the freedom to do what she wants (personally and work-wise), when she wants and with whoever she wants. Also, to be able to help people that she loves and to contribute to the causes she cares about.

What about you? Comment below: How much money do you need/want to retire? Or do you fall into one of the other two retirement categories?