How a 25-Year-Old Turned $5k into a Six-Figure Passive Income

If you’ve ever dreamed of turning a chunk of cash into an income-producing opportunity that allows you to quit your job and live the way you want without having to work, you’re not alone.

One Man Makes It Look Easy

While it’s not unheard of for a young person to create a nice passive income from a small chunk of cash, it’s certainly not the norm. However, one individual is sharing his story, despite knowing it’s not an easily reproducible outcome.

In 2019, our storyteller graduated with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering and took a job he hated in New York, making a decent $65K. However, he laments that the atmosphere didn’t fit his personality as it was often dirty, and no one on his team was near his age, leaving him virtually no one to talk to during his daytime hours. 

Six months later, he took a slight pay cut to work in western New York State and found a job more aligned with what he hoped his career would be. A year later, he was back up to $65K/year.

However, two months into this new job, our mechanical engineer opened a brokerage account with a $5K investment. 

So, he spent a lot of time lurking on social media advice sites and eventually discovered day trading. He admits he liquidated his entire portfolio and says he got fortunate on an LL earnings play. Within a year, he’d grown his portfolio to around $65K.

You Might Also Like: Is Real Estate Investment Trusts a Good Career Path

Real Estate Comes Calling

Around this time, this individual pulled $30K out to purchase his first 4-unit rental property, a single-family home, and a Triplex on the same lot for $138K. He says the property was well-maintained, and once he got the keys, he immediately rented the single-family home (SFH) for $950/month. 

This rental income left him $900/month in cashflow over his bills. He says that he was still working his full-time job and day trading during this time. Eventually, he was down to trading Amazon options and pulled out another $30K to purchase a three-bedroom, one-bath SFH fixer-upper.

It took a month of work and another $5K investment in tools and materials, but our man rented it for another $950/month. 

Having profound day trading experience by now, our engineer landed on a gold mine when he came across a post about GME, otherwise known as GameStop. In December 2020, our investor sank close to $35K into options, and within a few weeks, GME’s stock price went up over $400/share.

After selling everything, our guy ended up with about $375K after taxes. So naturally, this windfall fueled our man’s rental property craze. 

Starting with $150K, our investor purchased several properties, including one he used as his primary residence while he renovated the SFH. 

During this time, our real estate guru was actively looking for a new job down south. When he found a good fit, he rented out his primary residence for a fantastic $1600/month, hired a property manager, and moved to North Carolina. 

At this time, he estimates his annual income was around $9600/month pre-tax. However, in February 2022, this individual was laid off and chose not to look for a new job. While he says he doesn’t day trade anymore, he is still looking for rental properties in the area where he lives and continues to invest in real estate.

Once he closes on the properties he has under contract, he estimates he’ll be sitting at around $160K in annual passive income before taxes. 

He hopes to grow his portfolio to $300K before he turns 30. 

You Might Also Like: How Much Do Real Estate Agents Make

Jealousy and Admiration

While several commentators on this guy’s story think the guy won the ‘circumstance lottery,’ at least one is still determining if the story’s accurate.

The GME stock buys timing suggests that sinking a large amount of cash into GameStop around $19/share and watching it hit in the $400/share category would make some serious bank. And the timeline, this guy claims, is precisely when the stock price for GME skyrocketed. 

Many commenters had questions for our storyteller, wondering about everything from hard money loans to his real estate dealings. What do you think? Is this repeatable, or did the storyteller have great luck?