Yesterday I was talking to a client of mine about building long term wealth. We discussed some of the ways to do this in real estate. Things such as wholesaling, flipping, rentals, lending, note buying, land, development and building just to name a few.

And, of course you can “make money” at any of these real estate investing avenues. However, it is my firm belief that if you want to truly grow your wealth for the LONG term the best way to do this is through buying and holding rental property.

Now, I know many of you reading this may be saying “what the heck Andy, why do you keep writing about rentals?!” It is true, that other than last week where I took a deviation from this topic to discuss a MASSIVE tax break you can receive in honor of our nations not so beloved tax day, I have been writing about this for a few weeks.

The reason that I am writing about it is because it is THAT important. I know most of you are interested in real estate investing because of the lifestyle and income it can afford you.

However, if you ever want to have REAL WEALTH you must start acquiring cash flowing rental properties. Over time the cash flow that these properties generate can exceed your monthly expenses and then you have REAL FREEDOM.

The reason why many people do not choose to do this is mostly do to impatience. We live in a fast food culture where people want what they want NOW. This is why wholesaling and flipping are so appealing…you can make huge chunks of cash in a relatively short period of time.

Don’t get me wrong I am a firm believer in wholesaling and flipping along with the other forms of real estate investing listed above. I teach many of these methods to my students through our various products and coaching programs.

That said, with all of these other forms of investing, they all require you to have to get back up and do it all over again. If you find a great wholesale deal and you sell it, you make your profit and move on. This means you get paid once. If you want to keep making money you must go back out and find another wholesale deal.

This is also true of flipping, lending (you have to keep placing new loans), note buying, land, development and building. Again, there is nothing wrong with any of these things. In fact doing any one of them can make you rich.

But, if you really want to grow, hold and maintain wealth for your lifetime (and beyond) building a rental portfolio is the way to go.

Don’t be subject to impatience. You can wholesale, flip, build etc. WHILE you grow your rental portfolio. As you get older and want to spend time appreciating your golden years (or sooner), having a rental portfolio that is spitting out cash to you every month whether you get out of bed or not provides extreme peace of mind.

Not only that but it gives you the FREEDOM to do what you want, with whom you want, when you want.

Rentals pay you month after month and year after year. After spending the time required to find the right property that truly cash flows, buying it, financing it and hiring property management, you can mostly forget about it.

You do the work one time and it keeps paying you FOREVER. At first it is not much money…maybe $100 or $200 per month. But if you take a long-term approach and keep adding to your rental portfolio each year, before long this number will be in the THOUSANDS!

Remember this is money that is coming in whether you work or not. Whether you are on the beach, at home, sleeping, traveling or playing with your kids. It is this type of money that provides you REAL FREEDOM!

My encouragement to you today is to start your rental portfolio NOW. If you don’t own any yet…begin TODAY. If you do own some property, continue to add to it. It all starts with ACTION. Take action today and never stop adding real cash flowing properties to your portfolio. In 10 years you will look back and be SOOO glad you did!