Addition to our overall strategy - a new approach

We've always been good with our money and we currently have other investments (mostly stock and such).  Some do well, some do ok, and some lose.  After running some numbers, we've determined that 5-6% in other mediums is a really nice gain.  But I don't want to retire at 65.  I want to retire at 45.  This company is how that will happen.  But how can we get to 5 houses in 2013.  It's obvious that with our cash influx, 2 more is as good as we can do so something has to change.

So something is changing.  We call them member loans.  It's where one of us loans the company money.  You can do this a bunch of different ways but we're doing it as a unsecured loan at 10% interest.  They are interest only loans.  What does that boil down to?  It boils down to a place we can park our money and get a 10% return and the company can use the cash to purchase properties.  Maybe one day I'll post a more detailed description of how it works. but please do your research.  There are debt to equity ratio's you need to be mindful of so the IRS don't re-classify them as contributions and the payments as dividends or distributions.  This could throw all your taxes into whack if this happens.

Probably the most important thing I can tell you is NEVER take shortcuts.  There is so much money to be had doing everything legally.  There are so many ways to be creative and still be 100% legal.  It's important to have people you can turn to for questions.  I know in the beginning it's not feasible (and it's still not for us) to have a team of people, but again, get creative.  For example, I have a friend I went to college with that's a CPA and I hit him up with some questions.  I recently sent him $100 gift card to his favorite restaurant to say thanks.  Just remember, always do research first to learn as much as you can and hit these type of resources up when you're stumped or need an extra brain on it.  I've learned that people are much more willing to help (without reward) when they know you've studied up on something and are asking the right questions and not just some idiot without a clue.