- 29-year-old software engineer CJ McGlown owns a rental property that earns him $12,000 a year passively.
- He decided to invest in a turnkey home and hire a property manager so it wouldn’t become his “job”.
- Taking out a new mortgage worked for him, because the rent checks cover the mortgage payment and more.
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According to C.J. McGlown, you have two options when entering real estate: “Do you want to be an investor, or do you want this to be your occupation?”
McGlown, a software engineer and self-made millionaire, wanted to get into real estate investing as a way to earn passive income. That way, he could focus his energy towards passion projects, and his business instead of worrying about income.
There’s a big emphasis on the word passive for McGlown. When he bought his first investment property in 2019, he knew that he was strictly looking to grow his wealth, and not make this his new job.
“My true passion is technology,” said McGlown. “I use real estate as a wealth-generation strategy only.”
Currently, McGlown only spends about three hours every month doing work for his rental property, but it brings in thousands of dollars every year. And to make this his reality, he followed three strategic steps.
1. He made lifestyle changes to save for the property
When McGlown first started saving for the investment property, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to finance it or buy it in cash.
He did know that either way, he’d need a good amount of savings stashed away. So, he started saving aggressively.
That way, if he ended up financing it then there’d be much less risk, but if he did decide to buy in full, then he’d have money to do so ready to go.
“I tend to choose the thing that’s going to be the most difficult because that’s where I’ll get the most discipline,” he said.
Saving for the investment wasn’t easy, but it also wasn’t new to him. He’d spent the first two years of his professional life paying down $200,000 worth of student loans and already knew how to live frugally.
So, he employed the same strategies he used back then to save up for his investment property.
2. He learned about financing options through free and inexpensive resources
“I started with a resource called Bigger Pockets,” McGlown explained, “I started learning the basic things about how you actually make money from real estate.”
Through this education, the topic of leverage kept coming up in conversation after …….
