I am 35 and need to start building my investment portfolio (I have a small 401k but nothing substantial). I have been listening to the Rich Dad audiobooks and while I don't want to get my information from one source letting passive income work for you seems like a very smart idea to me. Since I don't have much money in the way of savings I am thinking I might start off with a rental property (after I have paid off my current debts) and go from there. I figure starting with real estate I can borrow the money and as long as it is cash flowing let it pay for itself and I can make more moves with the equity (either more rentals or stocks depending on markets). We are currently renting so if I can find a duplex to live in one side temporarily and rent the other that may be the way to go, or is at least something to consider.

Anyway, I am looking for websites and forums that I can learn from and get ideas. Anything from real estate, stock market, small business (that I can passively participate in), etc. I'm trying to learn as much as I can so I can make an informed decision when I am ready to make a move. I have been on the Bigger Pockets website and while there is a lot of good information the site design is hard to navigate to me. I guess I just like a more traditional looking forum.

Thanks in advance!

Good place for information.

Bogleheads forum
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php

Bogleheads Wiki
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page

Don't have much to add in terms of resources, but "forums" on the investing topic are so often full of shills and sockpuppets, you need to be careful. So this is a subscribe, I'm always looking for ideas.

Living at/next door to your rental property will be sucky. If you own rental property expect to do all of the work yourself, because one major professional repair can knock out your profit for an good portion of the year or even an entire year. Running rentals is not a passive activity IMHO.

No, it's not really passive, but is not as time consuming as a full time job. I'm ok with that for now. I was only looking at living in the other half of a duplex (or tri/quad) for a year or so until we can make more moves. And like I said, I'm still on the fence on that, just looking at it. The bright spot is my rent money is going to pay for an asset for myself not someone else, and I will be next to the tenet so I will be more aware of the property condition.

1. Open an account at a low-cost brokerage house with a good reputation. I use Fidelity.

2. Wait until the current stock market correction ends.

3. Buy index funds.

I'm not an investment pro or anything. Buy I've got my pension(pathetic) and my 401k(actual intended retirement) already budgeted in so my new income stream is going to be oil companies. They are currently in the crapper(BP, Shell), oil aint going away, and they pay solid dividends. bought with E*TRADE, set up reinvesting. Sounded like a plan. I think ill buy some Catapiller next,. the world is going to be needing lots of heavy equiptment, and cat makes a good product.

 I had that decision to make about 3 years ago.  We had just sold our house, moved to a new city, and had $50,000 cash from the sale.  We really looked at the pros and cons of buying two small houses, one for us to live in and a rental.  We're both very handy and have remodeled houses in the past, so we could have handled most of the work ourselves.



Ultimately,  we decided to buy a nice house that we would want to live in until we retire, and put about $10,000 into our post-tax brokerage account where we already had a bunch of good dividend paying blue-chip stocks.  Kind of like this guy....



       


Now instead of dealing with tenants we sit back and get dividends paid into our brokerage account.  We add a little cash to it from every paycheck and reinvest all the dividends.  We have to pay income tax on the dividends at the end of the year, just like you would on any profit from being a landlord.  



I've put a lot of money into oil companies in the last year; they're super cheap and guys like Rex Tillerson are fanatically devoted to maintaining their dividend.



 

You will want to look into tenant law in your state/area. FWIW in many places tenants have more rights to/in your property than you do. Even if you live next door it is not as simple as popping over and checking things out at your whim, unless of course the tenant agrees. Also, credit checks, replacing appliances, rebuilding your place when it gets tore up, small claims costs, eviction costs and dealing with no money from property you are paying on during the process all add up.

If you do get property I would suggest to not get one with any kind of out buildings. It will get filled with junk and you will get stuck cleaning it.  

If you have money in bulk I would 100% suggest that you instead invest it in a blue chip stock making you 3-8 percent via dividend. re invest those dividends and make bank. $5,000 gross a year with no hassles is not bad.

Have to go with this one.

So any predictions on when current market correction ends?

Nobody really times the market successfully. But it's falling now, and all the indicators are negative. So concentrate on accumulating as much cash as you can, and be ready to jump in when the indicators start turning positive again.