Our current real estate portfolio, excluding our primary, still stands at two properties in Ohio.  The primary source of resistance is still with the property management company, but that seems to be a recurring theme in the industry.  Today, we discovered that we were double charged for marketing fees for a vacancy we had with one of our properties. So, more managing the managers which is calories and stress that we hadn’t budgeted for.  That said, we are still trying to grow.

Our recipe is still the same: save up money from our active/earned income streams (where we trade our hours for dollars), and use that capital for a down payment on an investment property (where income is not tightly coupled with hours we trade).  We are still contributing to traditional retirement accounts (401(k)s, 457(b)s, etc.), so the money set aside for REI is after all of these expenses/savings.  At our current rate, we would likely be able to afford a down payment on a 3rd investment property in mid-August of this year.  So, we’re not quite at the 2 properties per year to get us to our goal of 10 properties in 5 years, but we’re making progress.

So, our typical jobs are still the primary capital generators for acquiring investment properties.  We do see a day in which our portfolio becomes a primary capital generating source as well, but that’s still down the line.  Similar to how once your retirement accounts hit a certain amount, the amount that they accrue from interest that year actually exceeds the allowable contribution you can make.  That is sort of the inflection point when you really feel your money is working for you: when it’s replicating like those brooms in the 1940s film Fantasia starring a certain popular mouse.

One interesting thing we did discover this year is an effective place to park your cash.  When we need to be liquid, we’ve been siphoning cash into a high yield savings account from Capital One.  That account has an APY of 3.60% at the time of authorship.  Another option would be to put our money to Treasury Bills (T-Bills).  The yield for 3 month T-Bill is 4.32%, at the time of authorship (I chose 3 months here as the maturity date of the bond because the idea is staying liquid).  Well, what if you wanted the better yield from a T-Bill, but didn’t want your money tied up until maturity?  And what if you also didn’t want to learn how to buy T-Bills, and wanted to keep the ease and convenience of something like your savings account?  Read ‘til the end of this article, and we’ll tell you!

Just kidding, we’d never play you like that valued reader!  The answer is an ETF with ticker symbol SGOV.  You buy SGOV (just like you’d buy a stock from your brokerage account), and the dividend payout (minus a tiny expense ratio) is basically equal to the yield you’d get from a T-Bill.  I won’t go into depth about this iShares ETF offering because that’s not the point of this article.  We wanted to share the state of our capital, and how we were tracking our investment goals.  That said, having discovered this great place to park your cash, we also wanted to share that with you.

Oh, and I almost forgot, there’s another huge benefit to using this as a pseudo-savings account.  I suppose good things do come to those who read to the end.  Let me first preface by asking: Did you know that the interest you earn on a high yield savings is viewed as “income”?  Well, just like T-Bills, the bond-backed ETF, SGOV, is also exempt from state income tax.  As I’m writing this, I am realizing this is a good place to call out that nothing in this article should be construed as financial advice.  This is just us sharing what we’ve been up to, and you should seek advice from a licensed professional if that’s what you’re after.

We’re still on our way, but 2025 has not been a year filled with momentum.  But that is okay.  There will be years of plenty and years of little.  Ebbs and flows.  Leads and Lags.  We are staying diligent and motivated.  Stay classy, San Diego, und auf Wiedersehen.