We have been at this for a few decades. We could write the book. After we accumulated as much as we could handle, for just the 2 of us, we started, not really downsizing but selling to move profits into better Real Estate. We have been doing that for a few years now. At this point I don't really think we want any more Real Estate, so the reminding properties are now what I consider savings accounts. They will grow in value with positive cash flow. It is really interesting to see this come almost full circle. The struggle to acquire, the insanity and brutal hard work of maintaining and then the trading up for better Real Estate, less headaches, more profits and tons of freedom. We started at 40 and 50 yrs old. So if we can do this almost anyone can who wants to work hard. I started with $3K on a credit card and my spouse was employed long term.

I've been at it 16 years. Not sure if that qualifies for "a while" but considering that represents over 1/3 of my life, I'll take a stab at it.

Where am I? Doing well. "Over the hump / past the tipping point." We are now making more on net rental income than salary from my day job, and we still have some mortgages to get rid of from back in the day. Not enough to quit, especially since I mostly enjoy my job, it pays well which enhances our lifestyle, has decent flexibility, and my co-workers are good folks. But, if the worst should happen, we'd be ok.

Am I where I thought I'd be? I never set any definite goals. More like spit-wadding. 16 years ago I had no clue if this effort was going to be successful, nor did I really define what "success" meant. For the hard-hitting, Type A business persons in the room, that probably sounds mealy-mouthed and weak, and that I'd never succeed. That said, we are millionaires and have more liquid cash in the bank & investments than 90% of Americans. So, I guess those type As aren't always correct. I've gotten a little better at goal setting: having the OPTION to retire from the day job at age 50 and not significantly notice a decline in quality of lifestyle. We are rapidly approaching that and should hit it earlier than anticipated. But I may continue to work the day job, for reasons listed in the previous paragraph.

Would I do it again? Sure. It's been fun, challenging, profitable, and I've gotten to know a lot of great people, many of whom are on this board. Jeffrey has a saying, "Make the most of what God gives you." Real estate investing has been one way I accomplish this.

We had thrown the idea around for ages before we were in the right spot to make the jump. But it wasn't all the books I'd read, or my powers of persuasion that got him on board... it was talking to an attorney friend of his that he admired who made more with apartments in Houston than he did as an attorney.

Our first place was a 480 sf 1/1. It was so crummy, you could smell it from the street. The ll was a burned-out ll who would rent to anyone who waved money at him. The last people to live there were a girl, her four kids, and her druggy boyfriend. He had no clue why they failed... but they did, and he was done. It was such a crummy place, I didn't even bother to take photos or remember it, because surely DH wouldn't want to start with that... but he surprised me. He'd be willing to risk $7k on picking it up, and we bought it at Easter, 2010. (Knowing what we know now, we overpaid... but it got us started, so totally worth the price of admission.) He and a friend of his did all the work, and we had our first tenant in right after Halloween. Then we lost our first tenant about three weeks later, because she got picked up on outstanding warrants that hadn't shown up in screening. We had our next tenants in February (a family that wanted a sensory-neutral retreat for their autistic kid). They were good, until the mom discovered she had cancer, and they had to cut back on the extras...

Fast-forward to 2021, and I'm still in the let's-reclaim-crummy-houses biz. I really like it, because it's such a visible difference. Not only does it remove an eyesore from the community, but it does it without consigning it to the bulldozer... which is exactly where it's headed if people like me don't step in and throw money and effort into it. But I do, and all of a sudden, there's one more clean/safe/functional house for another family to live in... And in a small, poor, rural town, that's not always easy to come by.

I'm 2/3 of the way to our arbitrary goal. 2020 was the first time I grossed six figures. (Should have been 2019, but drama.) It all gets rolled back into the biz for aggressive growth. I buy when it makes sense, and work on what I've got in my pockets in the meantime. It's the kids' college tuition (right now, they're in 6th and 3rd grade) and it's DH's retirement (he has another 10 years or so before the math works out). Me, I'll keep on managing the biz, because it's what I do...

I'm much like Deanna (TX), deal with & growing where I am planted, like to salvage units that no one else wanted to make fit again. More folks have gotten into the game now, so deals are much harder to find.

We have a good/reasonable handyman that has been with us over 10 years so he knows the properties & the tenants. We are beginning to try to downsize but that is a headache & story for a different thread.

The main reason I got into rentals was to diversify my portfolio of investments...I was mostly in the stock market and didn't want all my savings tied to it. So I set a goal of about 25% real estate that I wanted to have. We started with one, got it going, and then the next, and so on. Once we hit 25%, we stopped buying. We pay cash for ours, so the cash flow is great with no mortgages.

I'll answer your questions and add a few. I've been doing this about 14 years now.

Would I do it again? yes.

Am I where I thought I'd be? yes, 25% with no debt

Would I advise others to do it? yes, but I always give stern warnings that LL'ing is not for the timid, and that you REALLY need to get a good lease and spend a lot of time doing your research (read and understand all state laws, fair housing, discrimination, lead paint, ESAs, develop processes for screening and credit checks, etc.). You also need to either be able to do a lot of the work yourself or at least have great relationships with quality contractors.

Has it been more difficult than I thought? In some respects yes...didn't really realize how many people will lie to your face when trying to rent from you...always have to get facts and double check everything they tell you.

We celebrated 25 years in August 2020!

We didn't make nearly as much as we should have in the first 15 years, in large part because we overpaid to start with, and had to hire out a lot of the work on abused properties. The last few years have gone well though.

I would be considered as an ender. Does that mean I am not doing any more deals. Nope. It means I am doing deals because that is the fun part of the job. But I am an ender because I can call it quits at any point and live off the empire that I have built.

I know this will sound shocking but I am not excited about paying the government extra taxes when I don't have to. So this past year I have done a variety of 1031 exchanges. I have picked up series of performing gas wells in a couple of states. I also picked up a sizable NNN lease property in 2020.

As for most recently, since mid December I have been doing a variety of my "bread crumb deals". These are very small priced deals that yield 4, 6, 9 and sometimes 11 fold returns on small pieces of land. I have also bought two houses, sold another and will be closing on a third property on Monday. I am pumping out a deal about every two weeks. My profit on these small deals ranges from $6,000 to $25,000 so you are not making a killing but these places are typically under a thousand to get into them.

Looking between now and into May I have three deals with closing dates. Direct mail will allow you have a small constant stream of deals. My other methods are producing hit or miss results. Retail operations spend between 4-6% of gross sales on marketing - what are you spending?

As for me selling places - sure. I have sold the places that I consider to be the biggest hassles. This is Uncle Ray's gift to himself. I have been buying places that are absolutely mail box money. Buying the gas wells for example does involve some level risk. But I bought in when it was priced at a five year low. With all the push towards electric cars, did many of the environmentalist consider how we currently get electric to charge up that car? I know solar right? Hmmmmm might want to ask the folks in Texas when the grid was down how an electric car would work. I don't say that to be political - just if have no power, you will have no car and that makes for a bad day.

It is so easy to get caught up in what is cool and hip right now. Take a deep breath and exhale. Things will be alright, the sun is going to rise tomorrow. Perhaps the media is working you up. Will things change, sure, this is my 31st year.....but it is all good. Cream always floats to the top and there will be crappy tenant and LANDLORDS. Police yourself and help one another

We bought our first rental about 12 years ago (at age 53) as a test. We played around with LL for the next 4 years. I became a full time LL 6 years ago and started buying more properties.

The good thing about when we started LL is that everything was on sale.

If I had it to do over, I would have started the LL business sooner.

We have paid cash and used the profits to fund the next purchase.

We are at 20+ houses.

I still consider myself a big newbie having started approximately 6-7 yrs ago. I had a goal to have 10 paid off sfh’s by my 40th birthday. I will miss that goal. I also had a net worth goal for my 40th birthday that we will exceed, so it’s all good. Despite the headaches, I’m glad we invested....every 1st of the month is a good reminder.

45 years.

All mailbox money at this point.

Going to look at SFH auction property this AM.

Tom,

45 years is impressive!!!

I'm at the bottom again.

The shacks I bought years ago need their engines rebuilt and rust holes fixed.

I used to use credit, now I work with cash on hand. So it feels like you don't have money...just like the old days.

Teni are different, so dealing with people is just as foreign as it was years ago. Learning every day.

Here is where I went wrong. I like people, and I like houses...it seemed like mixing the two would be fun. That was my game plan.

In short, I don't really know why I'm a landlord. It would help if I had some sort of goals. I've been working at this without a destination in place.

I believe not having a master plan was a mistake. When an obstacle came up, I would look at it from the point of view of the person who's job it was to solve the problem, not as an owner with a clear set of goal, which should be adjusted with the times. I keep the train on the tracks, but don't know where it is going.

Bill [KY], better RE to upgrade too: We sold our primary home that had a mortgage balance along with a few rentals to buy our dream home outright, which has gone up in value quite a bit. We didn't know we needed a dream home till we saw it. We sold more rentals and used the proceeds to buy another great single property. So what happens when you get older and still want to be invested in RE but don't want all the headaches, maintenance and tenants. Sell a few properties and buy one single great one with cash.

Ray,

I had to think for a while about bumps. Turns out I have been really fortunate. I can think of only a couple:

1980 or thereabout had some scary interest rates.

Bought a MFH at the top in 2007. Paid too much at the time. (moot point now. It is worth a lot more and throwing 10%)

Biggest bump by far has been this F ing PANDEMIC. I have done great with residential. All working and paying. Unfortunately I have a couple of restaurants that I have chosen to "work with" to keep afloat and avoid vacancies. That has cost me probably 15-20K.

Bought my first property with my late fiance, in 1989. It was learn as you go. I still have that duplex, two triplexes and a 5 unit with an old 1966 mobile home on that property. Can't replace it and it pays half the mortgage so keeping it as long as I can. Same tenant in the mobile home since before we bought it in 2002 (our last rental purchase).

I have been in the business for 32 years. I am glad we bought when we did. We would never be able to turn a profit at today's prices around here.

I only raise rents on vacant units as it is hard enough to get tenants here without giving them a reason to leave and then taking weeks to find a new tenant. I find that raising rents usually cost me more than I benefit from it. Of course, everything is so much more expensive these days.

I just paid off my last rental property a year ago and got on Social Security (now 66 yrs old). SS would never pay even a fraction of my bills so my rentals are my main income.

I bought a self storage business in 2006, right after my fiance passed away and I hated the business. Kept it going for over 10 years. With all the other self storage that popped up since I bought it, it was a money loser. I paid too much but still with others undercutting everyone else, I wished I had not bought it. My only losing property. Sold it for $23k less than I paid but I just wanted to get out from the monthly mortgage and other bills to keep it afloat.

I also sold the farm we had purchased in 1995 as a place for him to hunt. We rented out the two little houses there and rented out the cropland to get income for the bills. Sadly he passed away before it closed but my banker and the realtor helped me finish out the closing. I don't remember much of the process as it was a tough time.

We had only sold one other rental in a small town. It was a big house but hard to rent. Everyone wanted to be in the larger towns/cities. Sold it for a little more than we paid at least.

I/we made a lot of mistakes. The big regret was the storage business.I would have had a lot of extra money to buy other properties, had I not bought that.