Real Estate Investing is about owning real estate and holding it for long periods of time allowing it to increase in value. Real Estate investing is not a full time job and never should be, that isn’t to say it can’t generate enough income that you may not need to work, but it’s never a full time job. Do stock market investors take on full time jobs with all of the companies they invest with? No, being an investor is not about working in the business you are investing in.
As a real estate investor your job is to own the property and let others take care of finding buyers and renters and doing the leg work, like a stock investor lets the CEO and Employees of their investments run the companies. The true power of real estate is to spend 3 to 5 hours finding and negotiating a property. Closing on it and spending a few hours a year on accounting and tax returns while it increases in value.
If a property appreciates $20,000 a year you are earning as much as $4000 per hour – now that’s a great job! Real Estate investing does require capital and good credit, I will talk more in later posts about how to acquire the needed capital by owning real estate (there are a few ways to buy real estate with no capital to help get you started) and how to perfect your credit profile to be able to obtain financing for your real estate investment.