Don't wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and then wait.

You can get that leverage in the futures markets as well sometimes can get more like 10x, putting up 10% of the money as a margin requirement. It depends on the contract each asset and company that sponsors those contracts has their own rules.

I have always been a huge fan of the 5 year retirement plan where you spend ~20k each year buying a 100k house for a total of 5 rental properties to net 1000 a month after expenses from each house giving you about 60k a year income to live off of. currently a comfortable retirement can be done with 50k so you have a bit of breathing room as well. In the future though this may turn into the 6-10 year retirement plan. Also helps more and more the less you have to spend on renovations and upkeep.

You working on your retirement in this way/already on your way with it?