Where to start Ranger? I am 66 and have owned rental property for the last 34 years. Residential single-family, multifamily, commercial, empty lot rental, and even one mobile home. Done right it can be a great inflation-adjusted return on investment. Done wrong it can make you want to get out the short sword and sit on a white blanket. Here are some of my observations:
1. Stay away from condos unless you can get into them way rightside up, and you are sure rentals are allowed. HOA fees have a significant negative effect on your ROI, and FHA lending limits will often restrict the percentage of rentals allowed in a development.
2. No modular or mobile homes. Ever.
3. Pick a good area. I have a 4 unit complex in a decent area. Low maintenance costs, rents paid on time, little turnover of tenants. Wife managed bad area 4-plex for my parents. Maintenance costs through the roof, constant struggle to get rents, high turnover, etc. Hard to get good tenants in a bad area, and very hard to train bad ones.
4. Get a good manager/caretaker and pay him well if he works out. Why a manager if you can do it? Because being retired, you should be able to travel if you want to. On my out of state 4-plex, my manager is local, large and handy. I am very generous with him on a monthly basis, and in return he personally handles repairs, finds new tenants, and gets rid of the rare bad ones. Haven't had to do any evictions with him in charge. I think his physical presence is a factor. BTW, it took me 20 years to get to this point. Real estate partner followed by a real estate company couldn't do the job in a cost effective manner.
5. If the numbers don't give you a 10% ROI, avoid it. Buy wholesale.
6. If you have to use a professional real estate company to manage residential property figure you will only get 1/2 of the rents net.
7. If you use a real estate company, use one that only handles rentals. Avoid the normal one that focuses on sales, and does rentals as a side business.
It works when done right. Planners tell you to start your draw of retirement funds at a 4% rate, adjust annually for inflation, and it will probably last 30 years. With those #s, $600k in retirement funds would only give you $24k a year. In real estate if you can net 10%, that nest egg will return $60k a year, will increase with inflation, and will even provide tax benefits.