Anyone here invest in real estate?
Yep..
I've been thinking about it as a method for possible early retirement. Maybe buy a triplex or quadplex and live in one unit to see how it goes, have the renters of the other units pay for my mortgage and if things go well after a year or two, see about buying another property to expand.
It certainly doesn't seem like a get rich scheme, but equity can be built in the property to sell after some years of having renters pay for your mortgage, and once paid off, it would be straight cash flow minus maintenance and real estate taxes.
How did you get started? Pros/cons vs. just putting the money in the stock market?
I can't tell you jack about stocks; I'm.. not the guy, although I want to learn more about it.
I started my first rental about 11 years ago actually... I was young and bought a triplex in Cleveland (City of) in an area that, as a Heights kid, I wouldn't wanna live, but there's still people that wanna live there. My brother and I cleaned the place up, fixed it up, and renovated it the best we could over 3-4 months. We both had full-time jobs and spent most of our disposable income on repairs and booze.
We turned around and rented that place out for very little, and ended up turning a slight profit. But the equity in the home that we'd built up by renovating it and also paying the mortgage on it over time, allowed us to establish a line of credit with the bank and to also borrow against. We used that money to buy another property in the Heights (a duplex), and did the same thing.
My brother manages all of this and it's just residual income for me.
I recently bought my parents house with an aim to have my brother flip it.
Other than that, I have my condo back home in Honolulu (Waikiki).. It's about 2 blocks from the beach, and we're renting it out now for $1600/mo as a vacation rental. The building manager maintains the place fairly well, and while it's not super profitable, again, we're building equity.. The unit is an asset, and an investment, and it's an amazing fucking place to be IMHO... Absolutely love it there; the views are absolutely
unreal.
We're looking to buy 1-2 units in Kaanapali on Maui which is, IMHO, the most beautiful beachfront on Earth.. The units there can be had for a LOT cheaper than you might think, many of them need renovations, but these places have interesting rental policies. Essentially you buy the unit as you would buy a condo, but the building is maintained by a hotel management group.. Where we're looking to buy is where we normally vacation, which is the Aston Maui Resort at Kaanapali. But there's much better deals up and down the coast, we just have a sentimental attachment to this place... Anyway, in these kinds of places, the Aston management group rents out the unit for you to people looking for a vacation rental (they advertise these as normal hotels on places like Expedia, and the Aston name gets people to stay there).
There's other cheaper alternatives in Waikiki; IIRC there's the Skyline Hotel Group (I'm not sure if that's the name, but I can find out for you), and.. a few others... Essentially, you own the room, and the management group treats them as hotel rooms; you make a cut...
Like you said, it's definitely not a get rich scheme... but, somewhere down the road we're hoping to spend a bit more money on buying an apartment complex, likely in the San Diego area... I've just had too much money tied up in other projects right now to really be serious about that kind of expense.. But I think it's a great business to get into, personally.