After about 4 years of going all in on investing in real estate, I have tried regular buy and hold, BRRRR, and house hacking in multiple markets, and I can now say that they all SUCK. I started out getting hyped by all the BP books and went through any information I could get my hands on to make sure I was prepared. I figured okay to reach roughly $10K a month, I need about 40-50 doors, so I got to work and scaled to about 10 doors in 2 years. The problem was I wasn't making any money, if anything, I was losing money. Despite having a PM, the headaches of just 10 doors was insane, always someone late on rent or not paying, something breaking every other week (despite being mostly renovated houses), some license, permit, lead ordinance, or whatever else would constantly come up to take mental capacity from me.. I own in OH and FL (no war zones) and despite at least one of them being a "cash flow market", on paper a property would cash flow roughly $200/mo, but in reality they would always be negative due to issues mentioned above. And i really did take care of them and repaired promptly but still it just didn't work.

Now Im seeing more and more bigger investors (including Graham Stephan) who even bought YEARS ago and they are still barely breaking even. So imagine if you buy today. Sure you get future appreciation I can buy that somewhat but is it really worth all the hassle? Paying off the loan is a weak argument because you barely pay the principal until like year 20. Its pretty evident to me that REI is just not what it used to be. Brandon Turner started out by saying 50% of rent should be put aside for expenses, then that didn't work so someone invented the 2% rule, then that didn't work anymore so someone invented the 1% rule, like we're constantly moving the goal line to justify a deal. And now, I see people everywhere saying do rent by room, that works. Well yes but I've done that and its EVEN MORE headache. Imagine that on 10+ properties? Its a full time job. Im keeping track of some of the properties I sold and they have already been sold again 1-2 times, probably because people realize the same thing. I even looked at commercial real estate on crexi in all kinds of cities and literally nothing makes sense. Majority of 10-20 unit buildings would still be NEGATIVE!

I've realized that real estate is definitely not passive, it has incredibly low returns (probably lower than the stock market), and the only people that still think its a good idea are the ones that bought 20-30 years ago.. Instead, Im looking into buying a small service business. Sure its not as passive, but at least it makes money, and has the potential to be about as passive as real estate if you grow it big enough to hire a manager. So to anyone considering investing in real estate: My advice: DON'T!