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Ten-thousand dollars is not much. But it does not mean you don’t have options. It means you’ll need to put in a lot more sweat equity to stretch those $10,000. You definitely need more towards the end of whatever you start but the most important action you take is to START.

Real estate has many of the benefits of wealth creation. Here’s a quick scenario: buy a beat-down, undervalued property that’s selling for much less than what you have. There are many properties here on this site that sell for much less than $10,000.
https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/sldc/real-estate/lra-owned-property-search.cfm?nbrhd=All&Usagen=All&ByNbrhd=Search+By+Neighborhood

Before you buy, start reading books and online courses on how to do plumbing, tile/bathroom restoration, electrical work, carpentry, painting, flooring, masonry, etc. .. and if possible welding. Being an entrepreneur and financially successful requires a lot of knowledge to avoid digging yourself into a financial hole you can’t get out of. With refurbishing a multiunit apartment, you don’t have to be an expert but get familiar with how things are done and get your hands dirty.

Before you reach the end of refurbishing the building, start reading books on how to be a landlord and manage your properties like a business- not a passive investment (not yet at least). Your real estate investments will not be passive until you’ve owned enough to hire a professional property manager. You alone will know when that is since it is a subjective matter based on your necessities to live or retire.

Once you refurbish it, you rent it out for about $550 to $750 per unit. There are many examples on this site that are multi-units. Those are the bread and butter of most real estate investors. You can start out with a duplex that is probably about 2 to 3 bedrooms per unit which is a nice size that is in demand. Once you complete this whole process from start to finish, you do it again.

If you start young, you have the best chances of retiring early that is if you get really busy and you’re determined. The later you start, the harder it is for multiple reasons (family commitments, bills, demanding job or career, etc). You may be able to retire in your 40s. Believe me, you’ll appreciate greatly that you’ll be able to retire at that age. Though it may seem like a million years from now, it is not. It happens in an instant. And in your 40’s, you’re still strong and healthy enough to do all kinds of crazy stuff just as in your 20’s (travel the world, etc.).

My only regret was not starting earlier. I believe this is most entrepreneur’s regret once they reached a level of success. And another very important discipline is to never stop learning how to invest, how to create value worth fulfilling people’s needs, create businesses ran by business systems, and read books on successful business people including biographies (Rockefeller, Sam Walton, etc.)

In many ways, we are born with a disadvantage. Most of us are not given any kind of financial education. We go through our academic life learning about literature, history, science, math, etc. Yet I’m willing to bet that 99% of graduating high school students would not be able to read a financial statement let alone due to their own income taxes. And then there’s our education at home where money is usually a taboo topic and improper to bring up at the dinner table. It gets worst if you were born into a lower-income or middle-class neighborhood since there are fewer role models to learn from. The challenge to find a mentor that can teach you financial literacy can be quite an obstacle. Below are some jotted notes that can help give some insight of our inner workings of what makes us tick and what we can do about it.

1. Life is not fair. It wasn’t designed to be so. Those who accept this are at an advantage over those who think it should be. Those who believe life should be fair tend to perceive themselves as victims of the system. This is a self-defeating mentality since nothing is guaranteed in life much less owed to us by rite. It’s a false hope to expect it and a lifetime can be wasted expecting justification. In simplest terms – not everyone wins. Nature/biology is ruthless and very competitive where there’s a winner and a loser. You gain control by making a choice on what aisle you plan to be on and what you’re going to do about it. If you incorporate this reality, you incorporate a type of fight or flight mental fear that can be used as a competitive edge to motivate you into taking action. This relates to the concept that we’re set to fail from the get-go. You have to take action against failure, swim against the current of failure or you’ll be part of the average stats: 50% divorce rate, 80% of small business fail, 30% of Americans are in some form of prescription meds, the average has $60,000 saved by the age of 60, the average attention span is 5 seconds, the average now has about $38,000 in personal debt not including home mortgages. Let’s make one thing clear here – failures such as temporary setbacks are expected and a good thing if and only if you continue to persevere towards that goal you have set on your horizon and you learn from the mistake from that failure. Failures (setbacks) are expected and are a sign that you are making progress in your life whether it be financially or spiritually. True failure is when you have given up. Do you now understand the distinction? Failure is your stepping stone to progress.
2. Hexaco: Psychometric Personality Assessment Test (scientific)
   is one of the most accurate test assessments.
   Conscientiousness is one of the five personality traits which is the most correlated with business success. The four sub-facets of conscientiousness: are diligence (hard work), organization (efficiency, getting things done, executing), perfectionism (making the least amount of mistakes possible, checks and balances), and prudence (intelligence on how to reach success – making the right decisions. This is where most lack strength due to mental prewiring). The average millionaire takes 20 years to become a millionaire. This amount of time is usually due to a lack of the sub-facet of prudence. Those who have developed strong prudence along with the other 3 sub-facets get there sooner. Prudence is developed by reading books and having mentors. Find out what you don’t know by admitting you’re lost and seek what, how, when, where, and why. (Warren Buffet reads 8 hours a day – he used to read more, Elon Musk averaged 2 books per day, Bill Gates reads 50 books per year, average CEO read 5 books a month, Mark Zuckerberg started a book club reading a book a week)

3. After the age of 25, it’s hard for us to rewire our mental framework. After the age of 25, the way we can rewire our minds is through massive trauma. Adults 25 and older can relearn through trauma. Going through a traumatic experience will aid in the rewire of your mind. Most of us have wiring skewed for economic success. Use what affects you traumatically as a tool to influence you to take action and make commitments to change and realign your priorities and situation. This can have a life-changing effect.

4. The greatest advantage you have is that others have been there and done it! They have failed and succeeded before you. And many have laid down a path on how they did it. Most of them have read books on it all happened You’ll be at an advantage by learning from other people’s experiences including their failures and successes. Read and meet successful people. Most of them want to share and help you succeed if they believe you sincerely want it and are willing to work for it. Try working for a successful person in their business to see how they operate and what habits aid their success.

There are real estate agents that do specialize in catering to investors. You want to find an agent that charges between 5% and 7%. You’ll also want to find an agent that you could see their profile online as well as a picture of them with their listings. Be wary of agents that charge an additional commission fee.

During my first few property purchases, I realized that I was being charged a $400 commission fee while being a buyer. I’ve never heard of that before and nor have many other buyers and sellers. Let alone other real estate agents. Unfortunately, I learned of this fee after the fact. It was mentioned in one line in the real estate agent contract. However, you will want a real estate agent that knows the neighborhood landscape. This is critical in areas where a one-block distance can make a $100,000 difference in pricing. It’s not uncommon to see neighborhoods drastically change from one block to the next. You’ll want to get as much information from the real estate agent. Before meeting with the real estate agent create a list of questions.

Develop relevant questions such as: has there been any new development in the area? where are the bus stations located? Has there been an increase or drop in the population of this area? Where do people in this neighborhood work? What Industries or companies dominate the area? Apart from sinking economic rent, you’ll want to get a sense of why someone would move into the neighborhood. Is there a hospital nearby? Or is there a manufacturing company that employs many people nearby? You’ll also want to keep an eye out for empty lots or abandoned homes.

This will give you an indication of the density. Usually less dense neighborhood means less economic activity. All these factors are to be considered and can be useful information when deciding on buying a property. Most of the time especially good real estate agent will have this information readily available especially if they know the landscape of the neighborhood and specializes in investors

It is no surprise that in low-income neighborhoods, you may encounter a greater probability of eviction and a longer time spans in vacancies. These two caveats are inversely correlated. You will normally have a greater probability of evictions if you’re less selective in the tenant screening process however you may fill up your rental units faster. In addition, you may experience a longer time span of vacancies due to being more selective in your tenant screening process.

A key element to keep in mind is that the majority of your tenants will have past credit problems, an eviction, low income or minimum wage, a single parent struggling financially, and possibly felons that will have a hard time finding a job should they get fired or laid off or quit. Of all the applicants you may find approximately 15% will pass your screening process and be worthy tenants. You’re basically competing for the top 15% tenant pool and so you’ll want your rental unit to stand out to help procure them. Something that will tell give you an advantage such as a fresh paint job.

My screening process is no past evictions a monthly gross household income of three times the rent amount, no past felonies on their record, two people per room occupancy limit,  no pets allowed, and a cherry on top would be if they have a credit score of 620 or better. At times you’ll come to realize that no one is passing your screen test so you might become anxious and start being more flexible. When this occurs I may be flexible with the past eviction so long as it’s been at least 5 years or longer since the last eviction.

However, there are some things that should not be bent too much such as monthly gross income. A low monthly gross income will indicate whether that person can pay or not the rent.

There is much debate about which is a better investment: single-family rentals (SFR) or multi-unit properties. Due to the possible High rate of evictions along with making payments on the pending on how selective you want to screen your tenants which will have a correlated effect of timespan vacancies your best bet is to focus on multi-units. That way if you’re going through a rough time with one of your tenants such that they’re not paying their rent you have rent coming from the other unit and that is why you’re always producing Revenue from one unit or another. Due to this reason, for rentals in low-income neighborhoods, it is usually best to focus on multi-units.