Serious answer - I know a guy. Email me if you want contact info. He took care of my dad since he retired and has taken care of me since dad died. He's really good and can give you good advice, I think I pay $700/year or so but that's more than covered by what the money makes...as is what I have to take out per the gov...and what I spend on things like a light bar for the jeep and the Multi payment...and it's growing anyway. He obviously won't guarantee it but other than 2009 when things tanked I don't think I've seen less than 12% growth.
I know you'll get 9000 different responses, but I'm a real estate guy. I believe in the power of appreciation. I know you'll get financial whizzes saying what you could do with that same amount of money over the years blah, blah,blah. I like to actually touch my investment...I don't want to just see it on a piece of paper. The house I bought in 1988 for $56,000 is now appraised at $230K. Yes, it happened to be in a hip neighborhood. And no, I never really had a bad tenant. Now that it's paid for I have realized the dream of letting my kids rent it (at a very decent rate) until they get their feet on the ground just like my dad did.
I've said it before - I'd be slumlord locally if I were home enough to do most of the management myself.
Its probably good when its good, but its worse when it's bad. Gotta weigh in with how much work you want to do. Having a few rentals can be lots of headaches and a full time job, or it can go smoothly.
But seriously what we were thinking was to put it in IRA's or something to conservatively invest in. Mongo I will be in touch, but also we are going to look into talking to someone locally. The thought of rental property came up, but what we were thinking was rather than buying that, and dealing with the potential headache of shit going wrong with the property, and shit tentants, we would buy another house, in an area we knew would go up in value, live in it, then sell it.
I agree, but I have one. That's it...my little nest egg. Now my mom has five that my brother and I will inherit one day but I've helped her out with them over the years and they haven't been a big deal. Same old story, it's all about the location.
Index funds - unless you're getting alpha via access to obscure hedgies that haven't gotten crowded out of their alpha yet with your millions of dollars (I'm going off the assumption that you're not). Paying someone to manage your money these days (assuming you don't have a very specific liquidity needs like college in five years, retirement in ten, etc. which I can easily help you model out if need be) is a losing proposition. Oh, and as a current landlord - fuck renting property out. Life's too short to deal with tenants (assuming you're just getting a property or two - with scale I assume it's easier). -SuddenBraking, CFA
That's great and you've been lucky then. Im sure it is all about location because around here people tear cabinets off the walls and do damage when they get evicted, its some serious bullshit that really turns me off to rental properties unless I really know the tenants etc.. I hear more bad stories than good really but that's probably my area, lower income, shitty people.
My cousin has had the same experiences in Queens, NY. Or when the tenants are ready to leave they just stop paying rent for like 6 months in advance. By time you take them to court or whatever you are seriously behind in payments and if you get to evict them, then that's another few months of non-rent. Renters have a lot of power here.
F all the other appropriate resposnses. You need to get the biggest pick-up with the biggest tires that rolls coals. It must also have the worst gas mileage possible. Meanwhile while your at the pick-up dealer, you should have on hold the RV dealer scheduling to test drive the biggest class A they have that gets the worst gas mileage. This will make the beeb very envious and gleeful at the same time