The hustle and bustle of real estate is fascinating and it’s thrilling to be a part of it all. Investing in real estate provides experience in both the finance side and the construction side of things.

Many investors may be excited to dive into scrubbing moldy cabinets, exterminating bug-infested corners, painting, repainting, and installing sheetrock until your arms are weak with exhaustion.

But if you feel like you need a simpler option, so you can spend your energy on your own home and family, you will want to focus on the following 3 qualities.

#1 – Low Effort

The investment trait that will be most important to simplify your investing life is to look for investments that require little effort on our end.

If you are a parent, you’re probably a master coordinator of sports practice times, play dates and meal prep. Whatever your implication styles, parenting strips away a lot of your time. Having to deal with tenant applications and maintenance requests on top of the already jammed schedule can’t be daunting.

Let’s face it, there are cases where tenants, on the verge of eviction, purposely clog sinks and leave water running only to damage not just one or two units, but several units! This mean piles of insurance and repair paperwork to sort through.

When your kids are tugging at your sleeve to come play with them, you don’t want to have to say, “Sorry honey, I have all this insurance paperwork to do.”

So, an investment opportunity should rank low on the required effort scale.

#2 – Low Risk

Investments are like a playing piece in a giant game of Jenga. The whole thing topples over in a certain amount of time (the market cycle) and then you can re-stack the pieces and play again.

When will the Jenga blocks begin to teeter so much that they crash?

At this point, the tower is still standing, and many people like to speculate, but no one really knows how much time we have until the next market cycle will come around.

Our time in real estate has taken us through multiple market cycles, and our experience brought us to position our portfolio in a way that accounts for the possibility of that tumble. Thus, low risk is another main priority.

#3- Cash Flow

Gamblers spend hours, sometimes days at the casino hoping for the chance to hit it big. More often than not, they come home empty-handed.

In an extremely opposite manner, investing for cash flow is a great game. You’ll want your investments to cashflow as-is, before improvements.

That way, if the Jenga blocks do tumble, you’ll know that the investment will stay afloat until the tower gets built again.

Appreciation is great, but it’s good to be able to sleep soundly, knowing that you can count on the cash flow.

Attractive Investments

Investing passively in real estate syndications meets the requirements of all three – low effort, low risk, and positive cash flow.

Investors in real estate syndications like the idea of having an experienced team in place working the renovations and following the business plan on their behalf. The team does the tough stuff while the investors receive regular cash flow checks, tax benefits, and progress updates. Meanwhile, you have all the time in the world to play with your kids (theoretically anyway).

There’s nothing wrong with energetic real estate investors getting excited to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty on a fixer upper.  But for those whose naps and story time are much more valuable, passive investing makes the most sense.

Conclusion

Investing passively in real estate syndications that are low risk, low effort, and provide cash flow, allows the investor to have time freedom while simultaneously building wealth. It’s not a get-rich-quick strategy, but they’ll be happy to look back and know that they made the best of their time with the kids when it counted while also focusing on their financial future.

That’s what it’s all about, right?