Eight Lessons From Building A Seven-Figure Real Estate Portfolio (And Adding $1M A Year)

real estate

I’m impressed when I hear someone has a seven figure real estate portfolio. I’m doubly impressed when I hear that someone is adding a million dollars a year in real estate to it!

While I still enjoy my day job, it’s beyond liberating to have the option to step away at any time – and it has only taken us a decade to get to this point.

As with many things in life, what is most important is to get going in the first place. I’ve reached out to a childhood friend whose family was in the real estate business. They had a fantastic credit score and always paid on time. Incidentally, there were no maintenance issues during this time.

It’s Important To Start (Small)

Don’t Be Afraid To Experiment

Given our experience above, it would have been easy for us to stick to single-family apartments  Looking at different property types and market segments has helped us unlock some very lucrative deals over time.

Ignore “Doors”

For some reason, there’s a minor obsession with “doors” in the real estate industry. Some folks like strutting around telling others they own 20, 50, or even 100+ doors. On one hand, you probably don’t want to tie up your entire net worth in one property and location. That’s clearly too risky.

Take The Time To Understand Your Returns

You may get lucky with one or two properties without understanding the numbers. But there’s no way you will become a truly successful real estate investor if you don’t understand the math behind the properties you are buying.

Protect The Downside

It’s about knowing that even if everything goes wrong, we will still eke out a 1% or a 2% return on our money. That gives us the comfort that we won’t lose our principal – and allows us to focus on our “base case”, finding ways to turn the investment into a home run.

FOR MORE ABOUT THIS POST, VISIT PHYSICIAN ON FIRE