re: For the posters "of a certain age", how have you found a balance in your life?

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proforma on latest purchase is 30% ROI

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mine are between 20 and 30 as well.

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I need to scale up to multi-family

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i have been looking at that as well.

Looked at Grenada?

I went there on my honeymoon and they were selling investor visas.

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Fat Bastard

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I love the RE guys in here. I just wish we had more.

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i have been looking at that as well.

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I think you get more bang for the buck with multifamily. My last duplex I bought was around 2000 sqft. Both units were 2BR/1Bth. On these two units alone, I get slightly under 2k in rent. 3BR houses around my neighborhood are renting around $1700/month. Another benefit of 2BR vs 3BR is that 2BR units are easier to rent since there are more people in demand for 2BR places. Finally, there is less chance of losing rent due to vacancy since it's rare that both units will be unoccupied at the same time.

Bad things is that you repair expenses might be more i.e, two AC units, 2 ovens, 2 fridges etc. But you do get 2 for the price of one on other items like roof, yard maintenance, etc.

Another thing to look out for when buying multifamily is an existing storage shed/garage. The duplex I mentioned above had a storage shed that I spend 20k converting it to a studio. That studio is making me $650 a month so you can see how fast it'll pay for itself.

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MrSweets

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definitely wouldn't mind getting my multi-family feet wet with a duplex or 4 plex, however i was looking at apartment complexes,and looking at going to a seminar in Dallas soon by a expert in raising capital to make these purchases.

I have looked into a certain company offering an apartment investment, but basically all it is , is you loan them money, secured by the RE(much like private lending) and you get a fixed rate back for whatever the term is. Returns were nowhere near what i am getting on my SFH so i walked away. I'd prefer owning the whole complex outright.

That has to be a record or something? My account was deactivated for lack of use, go figure. After that I never felt like reactivating it to post.

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we are going hopefully late summer. At least that's the plan. NO, you are right, technically any of those Caribbean places you can only get to by air or sea. be nice to have a beachfront property I could drive to say in Florida panhandle but some of the prices and insurance are riciculous. cheaper in Roatan from what i've seen so far. I guess you have to measure the pros and cons.

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My easiest flights from Dulles are through Miami which gets me anywhere in the Caribbean BUT Roatan easily. There are direct flights to San Salvador but I have to overnight there and fly to Roatan the next morning. In contrast depending on the day of the week I have direct flights from Dulles to a lot of the other islands.

Still. I love me some Roatan.

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I've been hitting the 2% rule like a drum and even have one 3%. My market is gold for landlords.

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Where are you finding these? I've tried a couple of areas (Houston, New Orleans) and haven't been able to find anything approaching that, using back of the envelope math.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that I'll be looking at investing in RE within the next couple of years, and it seems like doing a duplex or multifamily setup would make sense for me, given that it would allow me to continue to work full-time and also get somewhat favorable terms on a FHA mortgage, which would be more advantageous due to a limited credit history. I don't have the time or skills to flip a house admittedly, but I will have a decent amount of dry powder built up (and very few things weighing me down) within a few years to pursue something like this.

You don't need the 2% rule to make killer CAshflow.

I think you have to plan for that 10% cost from the get go that way you can try to ensure that you will be positive should you choose to use a manager in the future.