How did you buy your first RE

buying RE sucks. In my experience: the only think more intrusive and tedious would be a divorce.

I bought a condo across from my University planning on using it as a rental/income property when i was done with school. I was working fulltime and making decent money in my 20's when the "first time homebuyer credit" came out. That was what pushed me to buy.

Sold it last summer for $30k more than I paid for it.

Be very cautious where you buy. I have lucked out in the RE purchases. My last was in north dallas, stupid market sold in 4 days cash above listing price.

Others on here have bought RE and seen the value plummet and they are stuck.

No one has a crystal ball. So no one KNOWS which markets will go up or down. But real estate is no different from stocks or any other investment. You HAVE to do your homework. If you stumble in blindly, apart from God taking care of babies and fools, you'll probably get kicked in the teeth.

If you have the intestinal fortitude and the ability to develop and stick to a solid long term plan, you can get into real estate and change your financial life forever. But no, not everybody is cut out for it. Not everybody is cut out for stock investing either (there's a lot of speculation that's called investing here and other places). Some "investors" just gamble on stocks. Doing that with real estate gets you smacked hard. The difference is, you can get out of a stock gamble that goes wrong much easier (and with less transaction cost) than you can with real estate.

Very true. I don't disagree with that. But in addition to that being a risk, with a real property investment in your area, you should/could become a market expert. Whereas in some sort of REIT based nationally or globally, it's doubtful that you could become a true expert. Much like Forex trading, you'd be competing against true professionals. I can compete against someone from Cushman & Wakefield in my local area (I probably know as much or more than one of them would). But once we enter the national stage, they have a knowledge and/or information advantage that I wouldn't be able to overcome.

Plus, I know of way too many REITs and TICs where double dealing is the norm, not the exception. It's too easy to get (legally) backdoored by the management. True, they represent an easier way to invest. But you have limited control if things go south (other than selling out your shares), limited information on the individual properties, no management input and no leverage advantage (unless you buy shares on margin - which I would never advise).

With that said, I'm not opposed to REIT (or even TIC) investments. But I put them in the same category with stock, bonds or mutual funds: they're investments. But with even a couple of well chosen quads in a good location, paid off over 15 or 20 years, you can spend your days on the lake, instead of at work. I'd look at a REIT or TIC as more of an income supplement.

Just my 2 pennies.

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Others on here have bought RE and seen the value plummet and they are stuck.

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which is why i always stress "BUY RIGHT". Whether it is for capital gains or cash flow.

My wife and I bought our 1st house when we were 24 for $165k . It needed cosmetic work, yard cleaned up, etc. We did this over about a 5 year period and later sold it for $230k. The market crashed during this time but it didn't really effect an all brick ranch in Franklin that had been pretty much renovated. We then used that money after the downturn to buy a bigger house which did come down a little from the crash. Since then we've bought 3 rental properties and am under contract for another to do a flip. The appreciation in the last 2 years alone has added nicely to the net worth (vs. say if I was trying to just save that amount of money from working my normal job) if you count equity in the net worth equation.

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That is third world retirement which is what I want anyway.

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where?

wow. so not married and no kids obviously. how do you feel about healthcare and safety in a 3rd world country? Are you just skipping around living off RE cash flow or do you have any business interests in those countries as well? Thailand should be cheap as hell, especially inland. I have read up on it some.

i plan on building a lakefront cottage in nova scotia as a partial retirement between here in Louisiana and my florida timeshare. One of the factors in using canada is i won't have any worries about healthcare or safety and it is not that far away. Only need 10% down up there and you get great value based on current exchange rates. 1 USD gets you 1.36 canadian.

DP

I don't mean to derail the OP's thread, but what led you to Nova Scotia?

Trying to avoid all the rest of us who are thinking about Belize or Costa Rica?

Ah, makes perfect sense.