New to Real Estate Investing? Five Easy Ways to Learn All You Can

If you are thinking about becoming a real estate investor, I want to say congratulations. Real estate investing is one of the most interesting and satisfying ventures you can get into. Real estate was completely new to me when I started and it may be to you as well. Don’t worry about that, you can learn and change your mindset.

Here are five things I did when starting out (and still do) that really helped me.

Read every book you can on real estate investing. It does not matter what the topic is or how big or small. You need to learn real estate terms, concepts and business models. Reading these may even help you decide what aspect of real estate investing you want to get into. (Be sure to check out the “21 Best Books for Real Estate Investors” list from BiggerPockets)
Download and listen to podcasts. Listen to them while driving, cleaning house or whatever. Use your time as best you can to fill your head with real estate knowledge. (Be sure to check out the BiggerPockets Podcast!)
Start to scan the business pages every day, either online or in your local paper. Even though most articles will not be about real estate investing, they will be about business, other forms of investing, entrepreneurs, taxes, etc. You can learn a lot about business terms and concepts, how business people think and what they watch for. I subscribed to and read the Wall Street Journal every day at lunch for example. Over time, your brain will begin to absorb what you read and you will begin to apply what you are learning to not only your new business, but your everyday life as well.
Read free content that you can find on BiggerPockets and other real estate related websites. The forums often have some really great stuff written by very experienced investors.
Finally, attend and participate in business oriented meetings. These could be local REIA groups, or other business related groups. If you live near a college or university, they often offer free business related lectures. Go and listen. Take full advantage of any type of offering to meet and mingle with other business people. For example, we have a weekly real estate investor’s lunch that anyone is free to attend. I have learned more at those meetings that almost anywhere else. Don’t have a real estate group near you? Start one with Craig’s List. Cultivate the connections you make as they can grow into very resourceful friendships.

The key with the above is to fill your brain with the thoughts and concepts that will enable you to be successful. Unfortunately, very little of this is taught in formal education so you often have to retrain yourself. But, it does not take long. Before you know it, you begin to see the world differently. Your new knowledge is working, your mindset has changed.

Photo: ammgramm

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.