Real Estate Business vs Investment

As fledgling real estate investors, we had two challenges. First, we had to use real estate to make a living. Second, we had to use real estate to build wealth so that we could achieve financial independence.

To make a living we got into the real estate business. We learned how to find and quickly resell deals for a profit. Sometimes we sold these in as-is condition to other investors (aka wholesaling). Other times we fixed them up and sold them to end-users (aka retailing).

To build wealth and retire early, we also began buying real estate investments. We wanted our investments to grow and fund our early retirement with regular, steady income. Luckily, real estate has many different strategies to do both of those very well.

Along the way, we bought and sold hundreds of properties. And today we still own 90 rental units in and around the small college town of Clemson, South Carolina.

I don’t tell you this because you need to replicate what I have done. The opposite is true. If you have a regular job to pay the bills, you can accomplish amazing financial results with just a few investment properties. And the real estate strategies I have used work very well in conjunction with other investment strategies like stock index fund investing as taught by the great JL Collins. more