r/leanfire • u/Specialist_Hawk6177 • 4d ago
28M, married, around $500K net worth. Tired of working and dreaming of building a beachfront resort overseas. Am I being unrealistic?
Title: 28M, married, roughly $600K net worth, tired of the 9–5 grind. Is my dream of building a small beachfront resort and retiring young realistic?
I’m 28M, recently married to my wife (32F), and I’m honestly at the point where I just want to enjoy life instead of constantly working.
My dream has never been to climb the corporate ladder, become a CEO, or work until I’m 65. I want financial freedom, stability, and the ability to wake up whenever I want without having to answer to a boss.
I’ve been thinking about buying beachfront land somewhere in Latin America, or really anywhere with beautiful weather year-round, and building a small motel-style property with multiple rental units. Ideally, we’d build our own house on the same land, but separated from the guests for privacy.
I’d hire local employees to handle cleaning, maintenance, and day-to-day operations while I oversee the business. The goal would be to generate enough income to live comfortably by the beach without having to work a traditional job.
Here’s our current financial situation:
Me: 28M, wife: 32F, recently married.
Cash: Approximately $120,000.
My 401(k): $80,000.
My Roth IRA: $30,000.
Wife’s Roth IRA: $10,000.
Wife’s 401(k): $4,000. She recently started investing.
Real estate:
Property #1: Rental property worth approximately $700,000 according to Zillow. I owe around $440,000, and it generates roughly $1,000/month in positive cash flow.
Property #2: Duplex we purchased last year for $450,000. We owe approximately $330,000. We live in one unit and rent out the other for $1,775/month. The total mortgage is about $3,300/month, plus approximately $100 for water.
My wife plans to continue working, preferably remotely, which would give us another source of stable income.
Career/business background:
I graduated college with a computer science degree and started working as a software engineer making around $75K. Two years later, I got caught in a mass layoff.
It took me eight months to find another job. I eventually became a technical project manager making around $100K annually.
During that time, I was also running a side business after work, generating another $70K–$80K annually.
Well, I got laid off again.
Instead of immediately jumping back into the corporate world, I decided to take my side business full-time.
Here’s how it’s been going:
Month 1: Approximately $24,000.
Month 2: Approximately $40,000.
Month 3: Around $15,000 so far, and we’re not even halfway through.
The problem? My business is extremely physically demanding. I’m 28, I work out regularly, eat healthy, and take care of myself, but I’m absolutely exhausted most days.
The money is great, but I don’t want to spend the next 20 years trading my physical health and time for money.
Here’s where I’m stuck.
Part of me wants to keep grinding for another couple of years, save aggressively, and use that money to fund my dream property overseas.
Another part of me wonders whether I should start transitioning now, while I’m still young and don’t have kids or too many responsibilities.
I also value financial stability. I’ve experienced two layoffs already, and I know how quickly things can change. I don’t want to make a reckless decision and lose everything we’ve worked for.
I’m not necessarily trying to never work another day in my life. I just want to stop trading all my time for money. I wouldn’t mind managing a property, handling bookings, overseeing employees, or dealing with occasional issues if it meant having most of my days to myself.
My questions for people who’ve actually done something similar:
Is building a small beachfront rental property or boutique motel in Latin America a realistic plan with my current finances?
What countries would you recommend for affordable land, reasonable construction costs, safety, and strong tourism demand?
How much capital would I realistically need to buy land, build 5–10 rental units, and a separate home for ourselves?
Would you continue building the current business for another 2–3 years to accumulate cash, or start investing in the overseas property sooner?
For anyone who owns a small resort, motel, or vacation rental business, how passive is it really once you hire employees?
What would you do differently if you were in my position?
I’m not looking to live some crazy luxury lifestyle. I just want a comfortable home near the ocean, enough money coming in to cover our expenses, the freedom to travel, and the ability to spend time with my wife without constantly stressing about work.
I know I’m fortunate to be in this position at 28, but I’m genuinely trying to figure out how to turn what I’ve built into a life I actually enjoy.
Would love to hear from anyone who’s built something similar, retired young, or made the move overseas.
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u/SteevieJanowski 4d ago edited 4d ago
Who tf is reading all of this btw - you say you’re tired of working hard, and then you say you wanna open and run a hotel in a foreign country which is prob 100x harder than what you’re doing now? Makes zero sense.
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u/ExcessiveDonuts 4d ago
We did it. And 100x harder is the exact number, at least for the first few years. Then it gets significantly better.
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u/ASingleThreadofGold 4d ago
Why do people always act like starting a business is the answer? It takes so much fucking work and energy to get it going/market it to get it strong enough where you might be able to step back and let it run by others (if you can even get it to that point). You'd think OP would already understand this since they're supposedly already running a business that's actually pulling in great numbers for just being a side thing.
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u/des1gnbot 4d ago
Have you ever built from scratch before?
Have you ever worked in hospitality before?
My parents, also software engineers, tried something like this after the dotcom bubble burst… it didn’t go well. They didn’t know enough about what they were getting into to properly estimate the costs of doing business, and it required round the clock work from them. They lost most of what they had saved.
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u/ExcessiveDonuts 4d ago edited 4d ago
My wife and I built our own beachfront resort in Mexico with a lower net worth but roughly the same when adjusted for inflation.
We sold it 3 years ago for approximately 4x what we put into it - after 13 years total, construction plus years running the business.
So I can tell you it's 100% possible but it's also hard as fuck. It almost broke us, in every way. But we did pull it off.
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u/Specialist_Hawk6177 4d ago
Which part of Mexico I’m interested in talking
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u/ExcessiveDonuts 4d ago
Just outside of Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca.
Given what you describe above, I'd guesstimate $1M minimum to start.
We did a LOT of the work ourselves. And not just running the resort but the construction itself, all the way down to hand building our furniture.
This is not a passive endeavor at all, especially if you want to make a profit.
But the land we bought for $34,500 in 2009 is easily $300k now. Double that or more if you want to be in the touristy part of town. We built a semi-remote all-inclusive escape type place, which was possible in that setting.
If you want 5-10 units at all near town where tourists can be self-sufficient within walking distance of the property, I think $1.5M is a better budget if you want this to be turnkey with other people doing all the work.
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u/Specialist_Hawk6177 4d ago
we were looking at Oaxaca. Also, my wife is Mexican and I have been to 16 states in Mexico so we were trying to see if we wanna go to Merida something in Quinana ro or maybe somewhere like in Costa Rica we just haven’t decided yet and yes I see that the land pricing has skyrocketed
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u/ExcessiveDonuts 4d ago
I'm guessing that even with the huge increases in Oaxaca that Costa Rica or Yucatan will be worse.
There are always new, up-and-coming markets, though, where prices are reasonable but you're taking the risk it becomes popular over the next 10-15 years.
By far the biggest red flag I see is the "passive" bit. Unless you like working your brains out and aren't afraid of hard, physical work in the sun, I wouldn't do this, haha.
We made money because we worked our fucking asses off in a way few people will ever understand. And even then, while we did OK for the last 7-8 years (minus the COVID mess), it was just OK for Mexico. The vast majority of our win came when we sold to someone else with a wild dream.
No regrets but this isn't the easy path or anything like you're imagining it to be.
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u/Specialist_Hawk6177 4d ago
So my current Side business well now it’s my main business is Mobile Mechanic and I’m working in Florida so I’m outside in the sun like 7- 10 hours a day and I get rained on so I that’s why I’m exhausted by the end of the day
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u/ExcessiveDonuts 4d ago
I just read your full post.
What is the plan to liquidate your assets?
You'll need everything in cash for this. Not possible to get a loan.
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u/Identity525601 $55k/yr spend | $2M Target 4d ago
OP stumbled into a business that is apparently printing the annual income of an ordinary American household every couple of months, at age 28, and 3 months in the immediate reaction is “Yes, but when do I get my beachfront estate?”
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u/Specialist_Hawk6177 4d ago
No, I have been doing this business next to my corporate job for the past five years and I have been averaging about 50 to 80 K per year on top of my salary job but now that I don’t have my salary job so I do this full-time and that’s why I’m making a lot more money
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u/Identity525601 $55k/yr spend | $2M Target 4d ago
Fair enough. My apologies for the early morning snarkiness.
Sounds like from other comments you already have a plan.
Best of luck✌🏽
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u/PastBuy8484 4d ago edited 4d ago
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
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u/beergal621 4d ago
Step 1 would be to figure out how to legally move and operate a business in a foreign country
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u/ExcessiveDonuts 4d ago
That's actually super easy if you have money to invest. A non-issue in the grand scheme of this project.
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u/beergal621 4d ago
Agree could be easily fixable but OP hasn’t mentioned at all. Makes me think they haven’t thought through their plan
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u/Here4Snow 4d ago
Is your current gig something you can scale to hire, then relax a bit?
Have you looked at how leveraged you are with your US real estate, and you are considering being an absent landlord on top of operating this resort? You won't be answering to a boss. You'll be answering to everyone: from the lowest staff to any customer with a beef to the local authorities to your tenants in the US.
How can you be tired of working and still make all of these proposals? No, it won't mean having most days to yourself. Not unless you learn to manage and delegate. Maybe that one point, try managing, and cleaning up your financials, would be a good 5-year plan.
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u/Specialist_Hawk6177 4d ago
I appreciate the feedback. How would you recommend me to start cleaning up my financials?
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u/Here4Snow 4d ago
Here are three things I would consider:
You state rental #1 nets $1,000 a month. Even assuming Zillow is close, and that's a big leap, that's not quite 2% against current value. And is that net after you have adequately funded a property reserve for future repairs, such as HVAC can be $10,000 and roof can be $30-40,000. In other words, that's poorly performing as a rental. You can put $700,000 into T Bills and make 4% for no labor, no tenants, no mess, no fuss. Maybe wind down that position. Now you're no longer someone else's landlord.
You want the freedom to travel, yet you want to operate a resort. Maybe what you should be doing for the next 5-10 years is taking breaks to do that travel, to investigate the answers to your questions. Geopolitics alone will be in flux while you investigate.
There is this great thing about being your own boss: you get to say No to clients. Once you have the business cooking, start to consider how a bad client takes away time and energy and other resources from the good clients. You can be too booked to accept clients like that, and too conscientious to tolerate the ones that prove this point over and over.
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u/Specialist_Hawk6177 4d ago
The issue is and the reason why I make what I make is because of how I communicate and how I do business I tried hiring people, but they don’t do the same kind of work and when I did it was less profitable, but then also after paying them I’m not left with much so I’m better off either not doing the work at all and using that time off for me or doing the work and exhausting myself, but then I make a lot more money
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u/mcoc_recruiting 4d ago
I don't think anyone who ever did something similar to what you are describing were being realistic at the start. You are describing a leap of faith jump into an entrepreneurial enterprise in a foreign country. No one would say that is a responsible course of action. It is a big risk that could result in a big payoff or could flame out. Even if you flame out you would likely build a skill set that is transferable to another enterprise. The question isn't about the plan, the question is are you and your wife driven to be entrepreneurs or are you a worker bee? We can't answer that for you.
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u/Hnry_Dvd_Thr_Awy Re-employed, for now. 4d ago
There's no way I'm reading all of that.
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u/Neo-Armadillo 4d ago
Developer turned gigolo and he’s worried about his body not holding up for the long run so he wants to run a resort overseas with his brand new wife.
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u/princessbirthdaycake 4d ago
My husband and I are doing something similar in Mexico. The dream was very different from reality.
Seems like you have some construction experience, but what about language skills? I cannot stress enough that you need to be able to communicate well if you’re overseeing construction.
If you build in a foreign country, you should plan to finance everything yourself, building credit in Mexico has been extremely challenging for us. We can’t even get a store credit card approval. Had tons of legal issues, paying bribes, professionals who ghost, scammers, and lots of difficulty getting approved for residency to live legally in the country where I already own property.
If you don’t even know what country you want to build in, then you need to travel and spend time in the places you are considering. Living and working on the beach is not at all like vacation. You may think it’s no big deal to have sand in your toes or getting a few mosquito bites, but putting up with it for months/years is probably not what you’re dreaming about. If you’re not actually passionate about living in a different country, you might find the challenges outweighing the (eventual) rewards.
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u/SDstartingOut 4d ago
> The money is great, but I don’t want to spend the next 20 years trading my physical health and time for money.
You don't need to. You do it for 5 years and then retire.
Let's say that 40k/month turns into 25k/after takes. You already have a day job, so you save it all.
25k * 12 = 300k/year.
Do that for 5 years, and that's 1.5m on it's own.
Do whatever you want.
So yeah, you don't need to do it for the next 20 years. Do it for the next *5*.
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u/No-Method-6524 4d ago
28 m married to a 32 f and no mention of the wife’s career, goals and aspirations
Cool story, bro.
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u/thehopeofcali 4d ago
Why do you think real estate returns are any higher than 6%?
If you want to be international, why own property in the US?
QQQ has been returning 33% since the end of the bear market in early 2023
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u/ThatsWeightyStuff 4d ago
I think the way to hedge some of your risk is by exploring buying an existing property, with years of business records, existing website, booking software, reviews, social media, housekeeper(s), permits, relationship with neighbors...etc. It's not just 'construction' and a website to do this, it's so much more that really will eat away at your time, patience, and $. If reasonable business records exist for the property's business, you can hire an accountant to verify using tax records, forensic accounting/ 'quality of earnings' study,...etc. the results then give you a rough baseline of income so you have some sense of an ROI from your initial investment.
The key benefit here is that it definitively lets you scratch the entrepreneurial itch, and being your own boss and living this dream, but it drastically reduces the risk (assuming the business is working as is, as above) of failure or running out of money before you even begin.
I think you will receive a lot of skepticism and derision here and it's not entirely unwarranted, as you can currently get a 5%+ yield on a historically very safe investment. You also need to realize that if you are an entrepreneur, your risk profile is likely very different from most individuals who prefer the reliable nature of a steady paycheck. Anyway, I have done some crazy entrepreneurial things in my life and just recently bought another small business that is physical but very profitable and I'm a lot older. There is something to be said to doing it now, at 29, so by the time you're like 45 and actually start feeling old - you've already done it, and you have the chance to cash out still aggressively early compared to your peers. You should also be 100% certain your spouse is not just along for the ride, but actively supportive of, and inspired by this dream too. For some introspection about your vision, google 'the parable of the mexican fisherman' and consider it.
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u/Spiritual-Seesaw 4d ago
well i aint reading all of that but it is funny that you're 'tired of working' so you want to get into hospitality
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u/girlpaint semi-retired 4d ago
As someone who worked in luxury resort hospitality for a decade, I can't even imagine why anyone, much less someone who's already experiencing exhaustion, would choose this.
Feel free to DM me if you want to chat about the industry tho.
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u/Specialist_Hawk6177 4d ago
LMAO she was a Laywer in Mexico and no works as a contract manager for one of the big hotel companies
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u/rei-lense 2d ago
Before you buy land, price the exit: resort-style builds overseas are hard to sell and rarely cash flow like a rental. Run the numbers as if you had to hire a full manager, not yourself, and see if it still beats keeping the US rentals.
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u/squeasy_2202 4d ago
There is a big difference between retiring and starting a capital intensive resort business.
You can afford to take some extended leave. Go chill out and get some perspective for a month or two.