Whenever things sound too good to be true and or too easy, I always think of the expression “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The media hype of being an entrepreneur is all over social media networks and gurus screaming out to starting your own business and become a millionaire. Yet there’s rarely the description of how long it takes and or how long and hard you have to work to reach success as an entrepreneur. Life is hard enough just being a normal wage earner and requires hard work to maintain employment. Whereas being a businessperson or entrepreneur is even more challenging and more work than working for an employer. In the media hype you hear a lot of “stop working for someone else and be your own boss ..” and that you should be an entrepreneur with a better possibility of being a millionaire. I disagree. The entrepreneur roadmap is not for everyone. Most successful entrepreneurs have failed miserably to get where they are at. I, for example, have had to live in a van for nearly a year to get back on my feet after a failed venture.
Most successful self-made millionaires by means of being an entrepreneur soon or later realize that the most valuable asset is not cash in the bank or assets of which inflate their net worth. It is time. Time to do whatever you want with it. Time is the finite precious commodity that you cannot buy back with no amount of money in the world. The way entrepreneurs successfully buy time is by means of passive income. With that being said, to get passive income using the more straightforward and traditional proven way is to either have a high paying job or a profitable business (entrepreneur) and buy high ROI rental property in regions such as the midwest states where it is possible to still make a high ROI as far as cashflow. This will, of course, take a lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of burning desire. This is required because it is a long steep mountain to climb. You have to be somewhat of a masochist and endure pain, be resilient and persevere over the challenges you will face. If it weren’t this way, everyone would be wealthy and live on passive income retiring early. In essence, you have to pay your dues and there’s no real way around it. The sooner you start paying your dues the sooner you’ll be able to retire early. I mean to retire in that you can do whatever you want with your time. It is what I have lived by and it has gradually quadrupled my net worth in the past 7 years.
Be wary of anyone telling you any different and making it seem like it is easy. They’re probably selling you something that does not work and they’re making their net worth grow with your hard-earned money selling you garbage. On your roadmap as an entrepreneur, you’ll be screwed so many ways from a financial standpoint that you’ll eventually (with time) develop a third eye on how to analyze the ventures and people trying to do business with you. You acquire an acute sniff detector when things don’t seem right and that’s only because you’ve been down this road before.
The sweet spot is to buy rental properties to the point where you’re making approximately $100k in cash flow. As of this writing, you can find a four-plex rental property in Saint Louis, Missouri for nearly $125,000. The rent rate is $650 per two-bedroom. That’s $2,600 gross per month. With lean property management, you should walk away with 65% of the gross rental income or $1,690 profit per month. With a total of five four-plex rental properties, you’ve reached a comfortable retirement bracket. With a high earning job or a profitable business, you can purchase a four-plex once every two years. In ten years, you’ll be able to retire making $100,000 per year.
You want passive income so you can be retired? You hire a property manager to manage the rental properties and that is how you provide the passivity in your income. As of this writing, I currently have 6 units (with a property manager) and spend approximately 10 hours per year and it brings in $26k in cash flow. I’m 26% there or 3.5 properties away from reaching my passive income retirement.
