Can You Invest In Real Estate with a Full Time Job?

Can you invest in real estate if you have a full-time job? Yes, and no, and sort of maybe. All right, hold on a second, I'll explain. Hey, guys, it's Brandon with BiggerPockets.com. And one of the things that stops most people from investing in real estate is a little problem called their J-O-B, their job. And for good reason, too. Jobs take a lot of time, and honestly, they kind of suck. Wait, did I just say that out loud? Anyway, there's a hundred ways to make money in real estate, probably a lot more than that. You can flip houses, you can do rentals, you can do house hacking, you can do BRRRR investing, you can do crowdfunding, you can do notes, you can do apartment complexes, and the list goes on and on. And some of these techniques or strategies, they might require 40 hours of work every week, and others might require 40 hours of work every decade. See, the amount of time it takes to grow your real estate business largely depends on the kind of investing strategy, and your personality, and your skills, and your knowledge, and your timeline, right? But with all the real estate strategies there are, they're going to require some commitment of time, at least a little bit, right? But what's more important than the hours in the chair is consistency. Let me explain. So first, if you're enjoying this video, do me a favor, click that little thumbs up button, let YouTube know that this is a good video, and subscribe to our channel. All right, story time. Remember the tale of the tortoise and the hare? So the hare continually, I don't know why they call it a hare, the rabbit continually sprints through the race, while the tortoise, or the turtle, takes a slow and steady approach. You know, a lot of investors sprint towards their investments, but a lot of other ones just, they consistently, you know, daily work towards it, right? So consider two types of people who try to lose weight. The first person sets a goal, and then they go to the gym for three hours on a treadmill, and they're running around, and then a month later they go back, and they use the bench press for a few hours, and they feel really good about themselves. Another month after that they go back, and then they use the elliptical machine, which is pretty much worthless. And the second person, however, they go to the gym five days a week, but they just work out for like 30 minutes on the treadmill maybe. Every single day, or you know, five, six days a week, they're also watching their calorie count every single day. After three months, who do you think lost more weight? As any personal trainer is going to tell you, the second person is going to win every time. Why? Because consistency in action is far more important than sporadic big action. So what does this have to do with investing in real estate while working a full-time job? Well, simple. Even if you can only spare a few minutes every day, but you're consistent with it, you can invest in real estate. Like most real estate tasks don't require hours and hours and hours of work. For example, you can analyze a real estate deal, in like, what, five or 10 minutes? I mean, especially if you're using the BiggerPockets analysis calculators like I do, which you can get to at biggerpockets.com slash analysis. Look, if you simply analyzed one deal a day, if that's all you did, one deal a day, but you did it consistently for three months, that's like 100 properties almost analyzed. Now, what if you just bought 1% of those? And you could end up buying a property every three months. Crazy, right? But that's consistency. So yes, you can invest in real estate while working a full-time job. In fact, it might be beneficial to have that job. When you have a day job, you don't have to live off the cash flow, the profit you're making from your real estate investments. And that's what your nine-to-five job is for, to give you money so you can invest. And then by reinvesting all the profits that you make, you can fully realize the incredible power of exponential growth. Additionally, you'll have a much easier time getting long-term bank financing because you've got stable income from a job, which can also help increase and stabilize your wealth building. So real estate can be highly profitable as a career if you want it to be, or if you're just investing while working a normal job, that's great too. The choice is completely up to you which path you take. There's no right or wrong. Just don't just simply decide to quit your job because that's what you saw some guy on a podcast do, or don't not quit your job because you heard some guy doing that, right? Now, you probably heard the age-old high school guidance counselor question. If you suddenly had millions of dollars in the bank and you didn't have to work anymore, what would you do? The answer, they say, is what career field you should be in. And I like that. Like, would you invest in real estate? If your dream path would have you, like, open up a shelter for abused animals or to move to Aruba to train tourists how to surf, then maybe you should be looking into that, you know, instead of real estate. Just make sure that your investing lines up with the vision that you want to do in life. And that's not to say you shouldn't invest, even if you don't want to do it full-time, right? I think everybody should invest in real estate. Just maybe you shouldn't make it your full-time gig. You don't need to make real estate a career in order to build real wealth through real estate. If you love your job, you don't need to quit to invest in real estate. In fact, you can achieve the same or even better result as a full-time real estate investor by or as a full-time versus a part-time. Like, the timing doesn't matter as much as the strategy. So that's it. Life is too short to be stuck at a job that sucks. So choose a career that makes you excited to wake up in the morning, energized throughout the day, and content when you fall asleep at night. If that desire leads you to full-time real estate investing, welcome to the club. Just make sure that you are not simply building a career, but you're building a future. So can you invest in real estate if you have a full-time job? Yes, if you pick the right investment strategy that fits your lifestyle and gets you to where you want to get in life. Make sense? All right. For more help on picking a strategy that is right for you, be sure to check out biggerpockets.com slash UBG to read our ultimate beginner's guide to real estate investing. It's a totally free online guide designed to help you become a successful real estate investor. And of course, be sure to subscribe to our channel here for more great real estate investing and wealth building videos. For biggerpockets.com, my name is Brandon Turner, signing off.