75: From Working on Oil Fields to Passively Investing in Real Estate with Travis Watts | Bigger Pockets Podcast

Travis Watts grew up with frugal parents. They taught him about coupons, buying the off-brand products, and basic financial 101, but never taught him about real estate investing. In 2009, as the market was hitting unprecedented lows, he decided to start investing in real estate. He purchased a single family home to start, then started house hacking, moved on to some fix and flips, bought some vacation rentals, and before he knew it, he was a very active real estate investor.
There was one problem though. Travis was working 90+ hour weeks in the oil industry, often working overseas for long periods of time. Travis was trying to run his active investing with his hectic schedule, but often found it hard to put a high level of effort into his rentals when so much of his energy was being exerted from his job. In 2015, Travis made the decision to become a passive investor.
Passive investing isn’t for everyone, especially for those who want to be making the big decisions. Luckily, Travis didn’t mind having general partners make decisions for the syndications he invested in, if anything, he preferred it. Travis walks through what you need to look at before putting money into a syndication, including the general partners, the market, and the deal. He also talks through how to identify whether or not a syndication is being run well, and other passive investing strategies like investing in REITs.
Many real estate investors will find themselves with lots of projects, lots of experience, lots of money, but little to no time. If you feel like this, it may be a good idea to start balancing some of your active investing with more passive cash flow opportunities!
In This Episode We Cover

The benefits of passive and active real estate investing

Syndications and who they’re meant for

506(b) and 506(c) syndications and the differences between the two

How to identify good general partners running syndications

Becoming an accredited investor 

REITs (real estate investment trusts) and other passive income strategies 

How much money passive investors can make

And So Much More!

Links from the Show

Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group

BiggerPockets Forums

Charles Schwab

Janus Henderson

BiggerPockets Podcast 227: From Single Family Houses to $130,000,000 in Multifamily with Joe Fairless

Ashley's Instagram

Tony's Instagram

Check the full show notes here: link
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