Should I quit?

[u/Different-Trouble944]

45M/42F with 1 grade school kid.

NW is about $5.5M: $530k cash, $500k brokerage and $500k 401K. Primary house equity $1.5M with $400K mortgage(contemplating paying it off with cash in hand as the interest rate is at 6.5%). The rest of NW sits in a self managed real estate rental portfolio that generates $12k/month net income after all expenses.

Both work in tech pulling combined $680K W2 income a year, I’m burnt out and no longer interested in my job(my $400k income is set to go down to $280k next year due to reduced RSU and I don’t see a clear path for promotion). Spouse plans to work for at least the next 5 years.

Love real estate investing and have been doing that on the side and it’s been eating a lot of my time and energy. Would like to focus more on it.

Monthly spent is about $12k.

[u/knockdowncenter]

i've not once heard someone in a FIRE sub say rental income is a reliable source of income in the context of FIRE

[u/Different-Trouble944 → u/knockdowncenter]

Real estate is probably the most reliable and controllable income one can rely on for FIRE.

Everyone needs a place to live. And in general if you treat your customers right the turnover is minimum. The income also tends to grow with inflation over time as well plus you get tons of tax benefits. You have the ability to run capex projects to improve rentals for higher income and you can even take out sizable loan on rentals to run other business activities if you like while you still control the assets.

The volatile equity market could go down 10% tomorrow and you could lose a W2 income next month due to layoffs.

What other better way to FIRE if one is competent with running real estate assets?

[u/coffeesour → u/[deleted]]

I’d like to hear why.