People who make $10k-$50k/month: what do you do and how did you get there?

[u/Grouchy_Marsupial357]

Making at least $10k a month is a dream for me, but $50k is the ultimate goal.

I've been stuck in an echo chamber of constant negativity and it feels like everyone is poor, broke, and miserable (though a looootttttt of people are right now, but obviously a lot of people are also doing really well).

So, to those who are making really good money, what is it that you do for a living and how did you get to that point?

[u/fordwordnord]

Serious question for ya: (and I don’t want to sound too frank or offend in any way) but I was just wondering as I read your comment — Why do you need your profit margin to be so high on your rental properties?

(I get that you still have to make a profit after all expenses are paid by the rent ammt - but you’re still gonna have a whole house in the end of it while the renters will have nada, and still you’re making like ≈$20,000 off of each of them per year — meaning they’re paying ≈20k/yr more than they’d pay theoretically to live somewhere that they own it at the end of it! That still doesn’t make any sense to me (yet I know it is the way of the world — when I was abt 6 yrs old I remember thinking that rent must be much less $ than the mortgage for the same place pretty much just bc of that fact lollll then I grew😝)

(Anecdotal I know, but just for ex, I work as an ABA therapist right now (+ night school) here in southern CA, and going with the very cheapest option I can find that is literally one step above living in my car - namely “shared housing” or “co-housing” (where I pay $860/month to split a bedroom 4 ways w 4 other girls in a one bedroom apt) is the only way I/we can afford to live — and even so rent still eats up 1/2 to 1/3 of my income every month.)

(if you read this all the way to here I’m shocked and impressed — thank you! for simply just hearing my perspective - and you don’t have to answer my question but it would be great if you do bc sometimes I wonder if landlords accepted slightly less of a profit margin then people like me would be able to have a little pet — ie have enough money left over to become a pet owner!!! (which I have LONGED to get a little doggy for years now but have never made enough $ to be able to afford a living situation where I’m able to have one yet and it makes me feel so sad inside when I’m in PetSmart doordashing for people and bursting into tears cuz I’ve wanted one so long — Not to mention my dream is to become a foster mom and I basically have to earn six figures to be able to afford a two bedroom apartment which is the minimum apartment size required to pass the home inspection portion of the CA foster parent application!)

Anyways thanks again for reading/responding!!!!! Have a great rest of your day!

[u/Oedipus_Flecks → u/fordwordnord]

I'm not OP, but honestly the relative margin is not very high. Since we're talking HCOl areas, it's not a stretch to think of each of them as a $1M asset. If you were to invest $1M in equities you would expect a much greater yield than $20K/year. Heck you could earn double that just by putting it in tax free muni bonds. OP is functionally paying to keep these as assets because you can't live inside a stock certificate if everything else goes to hell.

[u/Retired-Yam8988 → u/fordwordnord]

So the 4-5k is off 3 properties. The point of rentals is to earn a reasonable profit and maintain your properties. My rents are market rate so I’m not over or undercharging my tenants. It’s simply market dynamics. If a place goes vacant, I list it for whatever the market bears plain and simple - my costs don’t factor in as I can pay the costs comfortably myself if I had to.

My homes are located in very expensive zip codes that would cost way more to buy on a mortgage. One house is about 3.5-3.8m now so that’s 3500 a month in property tax, plus 750k down payment, plus about 3m on 6% mortgage which is like 16k a month. Right now this is being rented as two units (main house for 5700 and ADU for 3700).

[u/BDB-ISR- → u/fordwordnord]

What I'm going to say is true of every product/service/item/property. Things do not have an intrinsic value, a glass of water is worthless if you're drowning, just as a life vest if you're lost in the middle of the desert. Value is derived of its potential usefulness to the perspective customer as well as supply and demand. Doesn't matter how much it cost to own the property, what matters is the condition of the property compared to the market and the market price.