Real Estate Investing For Your Retirement

Are you going to be able to retire?  And if you do, will you be in a position to enjoy your retirement years, cover any necessary medical bills and maintain an acceptable level of health?

Those can be chilling questions if you haven’t thought about them much.  If you haven’t given them adequate thought, that means you haven’t prepared for certain inevitabilities.

Real estate investment can help you answer those questions and remove that chill factor.

Let’s face it.  You don’t want to spend your golden years working but what if your current anticipated pension, social security or retirement funds will be inadequate to cover all your needs.   Sure, if you could find a job in your sixties, it could pull in additional funds but will it be enough.  And, if you find a job, how long will you have to work?  You may live well up into your 80s or 90s but you may not be unable to do the job you are doing today—or any job for that matter.

You need to lay the foundation for security and happiness in your retirement years.  Real estate can help you do that.  Real estate investing has a number of key benefits:

1. You can work from home
2. You can control your own hours
3. It’s easy to learn
4. You can make a lot of money
5. No equipment
6. No inventory
7. No employees
8. Low upfront investment
9. No licenses or special degrees required
10. You can start making money immediately

Real estate can provide monthly cash flow income, significant tax savings and steady equity growth, all in just one investment.  As your investments age, they should be making more and more money for you with less and less work output from you.  It’s a sort of self-perpetuating investment that will serve you well, especially in later years.  That’s why people get into real estate investing in the first place.

In order to prepare for your retirement in this way, however, you must start by examining your core.  That means that you will need to fully understand your financial needs in retirement.  What will you have and how much will you need to make sure your needs are taken care of in such a way that you don’t have to spend all of your time scrounging for pennies.  You need to take the time to evaluate your current budget, personal financial status, and net worth.

According to Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad book series, you need to build a business system that can operate without you, thereby making money without working for it.  Then take a portion of that money and invest it, thereby exponentially increasing your earning potential.  Have you heard of making your money work for you instead of vice-versa?  That is what this means.

As you grow older, you should be working less, not more.  This is partly because your ability to work will decrease. But it is also because you deserve to be able to work less and enjoy your life more.  Retirement isn’t about being forced out of a job—or at least it shouldn’t be.  It should be about leaving a job to enjoy a new season of your life.  To spend time doing the important things like hanging out with family and friends, travel, engaging in hobbies that you enjoy and becoming involved in life-enriching activities like serving others or growing spiritually.  Not to mention getting enough exercise.

As you educate yourself, start connecting with other investors and find a good mentor, you can start investing in real estate.  Whether you start investing through wholesaling, flipping, lease options, buying single-family rentals or apartment complexes, you can create a real estate business that will not only provide the income you need for a comfortable and prosperous retirement, but you can also create a legacy for your children and grandchildren.  Real estate investment is a skill like any other and you will make mistakes.  Don’t be afraid of making mistakes but, instead, consider any mistake as a valuable learning experience – part of your education.  After a while, you should see your money start to grow exponentially.  Then you are on your way to the retirement of your dreams.

Bill Manassero is the founder/top dog at “The Old Dawg’s REI Network,” a blog, newsletter, and podcast for seniors and retirees, that teaches the art of real estate investing. His personal real estate investing goal, which will be chronicled at olddawgsreinetwork.com, is to own/control 1,000 units/doors in the next 6 years. Prior to that, Bill and his family lived in Haiti for 11 years as missionaries serving orphaned, abandoned and at-risk children.