I'm Selling Every Investment Property I Own: Here's What I Wish I'd Known Before Buying Them

I am selling all my real estate investments in three countries: Austria, Hungary, and Portugal. My first-ever investment was an apartment in 2012 that I bought initially for myself and rented as an Airbnb.

If I had known these learnings before:

Real estate is far less passive than investors like to admit

I tried everything I could to run them as a passive income stream. My properties were rented to an apartment management company. My Airbnb in Austria was handled by my assistant.

Nevertheless, various issues came up all the time (over 13 years):

• Yet another discussion about reducing my rent because of some new and great reason that I heard

• Tax laws changing yet again

• New regulations making it more difficult to rent

• Just random stuff happening that you can’t even imagine

Buying and selling takes years

I knew that real estate is an illiquid asset. It takes time to buy at the right price and patience to sell it.

I went through the process of finding the right properties and eventually selling them. The reality is that it took me over 2 years and 3 different agents to finally sell my Austrian apartments. Even when you find the right buyer and sign the agreement, it can take another 1 to 2 months to have the money in your bank account. Insanely slow. This is pretty much the same for Portugal and Hungary too.

When you buy or sell index funds, it can be done in seconds, and you can buy the equivalent of entire apartment buildings. Much better!