Real Estate is in a bubble and as much of a scam as everything else. Your age, with two older acquaintances who made millions from RE. The environment is NOT the same as when they were doing it. Every garbage house gets picked up by "investors" now that either scam (pain rotting drywall and put a new heater in, bump price 40%) or lose money on it. Or it gets picked up by real investors that have crews that can gut it entirely cost effectively. It's the same for flipping cars - the profit margins are razor thin.
The only RE investing that still works is buy, rent, have retirement equity in 30 years, maybe. Occasionally put some money IN. Potentially lose a lot of money mid term and hold paper losses if RE bubble pops. And guess what? Maybe not even that with the current rates.
It's funny to see people acting like RE is some bastion of stability. Stock market is inflated atm too.
> The only RE investing that still works is buy, rent, have retirement equity in 30 years, maybe
Yes. What other way could you possibly reliably generate positive cash flow with real estate as a normal person without a lot(!) of initial equity?
Common advice where I'm from is buy tiny apartments without rent cap in good locations (Stuttgart, Vienna, etc.) on maximum loan runtime to refinance later and rent them out. Preferably one every 1-2 years. These typically cost anywhere around € 120-150k and the common 20% deposit can be earned reasonably quickly. Banks will usually be completely fine with this as long as you have positive cash flow and you can write off a lot of things around your business as a renter on your income tax forms in most countries.
I have only ever heard variations of this advice. Never anything else.
There are a 1000 real estate schemes/strategies being marketed to people:
1. Flip - buy undervalued property, fix it, sell it. Variation: buy in bad neighborhood, fix, rent, neighborhood gets better, sell it.
2. "Buy cashflow" - e.g. find properties where rent > monthly payment/taxes/interest/maintenance. Impossible now.
3. Split and short term rental - buy house, fix, split single family home into 5 units (garage == unit, basement == 2 units, each room == unit, etc. I see this in the US more and more now, which is an indication of the economy.
4. Rent, short term rent out (often fully legally with consent of apartment / house owner). Benefit to this is no cash investment.
5. Houses at foreclosure auctions. tldr: Sell for more than normal open market houses now because everyone goes.
I can list about 15 more, but again, the point is that the market isn't what it used to be so none of these really work anymore, but it doesn't keep people from pushing them.
The only RE investing that still works is buy, rent, have retirement equity in 30 years, maybe. Occasionally put some money IN. Potentially lose a lot of money mid term and hold paper losses if RE bubble pops. And guess what? Maybe not even that with the current rates.
It's funny to see people acting like RE is some bastion of stability. Stock market is inflated atm too.