What’s your retirement plan? If you’re like most people, you probably have some vague thoughts about spending part of the year soaking up the sun and enjoying the golf course. Perhaps a beautiful home and some cash set aside for any care you or your partner might need. But unless you’re either lucky in terms of private funds or have been really good about putting  money aside, you’re more likely to joke that you’ll need to win the lottery before you hang up your work clothes for good.

If that sounds like you, you might have reassured yourself in lean times that social security will take care of you in the years to come. However, you can’t rely on this either. Nobody knows what changes might happen in legislation in the future. You might suddenly find that either you’re eligible for very little, or there’s simply not enough left in the social security pot to take care of you adequately.

It might be time to start thinking about investments that will enable you to carry on a good standard of living post-retirement or even planned a few fun side ventures that will continue to bring you a passive or near-passive income when you’re ready to retire for good. Real estate might be one of the best investments to help you build wealth when you’re don’t have a lot of time and pretty meager resources.

It’s not too late! Here are three things you can do to help build your riches and get you ready for retirement quickly.

How to Retire Rich with Real Estate

Consider Selling Your Home

This might seem like a rather drastic piece of advice, but if the family are grown and flown, you might have been considering downsizing your home anyway. This will realize quite a pot of cash which will give you a variety of options including:

• buying both a property to live in and a property to rent out with no or minimal mortgage
• obtaining a mortgage to buy a property that you only plan to live in for a few years before moving on and renting it out – something that can be repeated ad infinitum

Buy a Fix-er Upper

It can seem an attractive prospect to buy up shacks and turn them into palaces, but there are many pitfalls. For example, if you don’t do your area research properly, you may find yourself spending more than the local buying or renting market will cover. However, these aren’t total disasters for the property and DIY savvy. If you think your purchase cost and renovation budget are approximately equivalent to the market rate for a resale, renting these properties out for a few years will return a respectable profit.

Invest in Turnkey Rental Properties

Never heard of turnkey properties? These are where the safest money is, if you choose your managing agency with care. These are rental properties which need little or no work on them after purchase (so you’ll have time to enjoy your retirement instead of worrying about the headaches that come with being a landlord). Turnkey property management companies can help you choose a great property that will  often come with a sitting tenant. Working with a turnkey property management company also makes it possible to choose out-of-state properties to maximize returns. Building a portfolio is key—not only will you have constant rental income, but you can sell a property to realize ready cash if needed.

Talk to one of our investment specialists to learn how JWB can help you earn passive income through real estate investing.