How to practice the math for real estate investment?

[David Yee]

Hello! I'm hoping to purchase a rental property in the next year. I read the Book on Rental Property Investing and am reading various articles on the matter. I'm ready to start practicing the math associated with analyzing properties. How do you suggest I go about doing this? Should I just start finding properties on Redfin and performing the calculations called out in the Book on Rental Property investing? I don't know if it matters but I will need to look at properties that are outside of where I live since San Diego is very expensive.

Thank you all in advance!

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @David Yee:

Hello! I'm hoping to purchase a rental property in the next year. I read the Book on Rental Property Investing and am reading various articles on the matter. I'm ready to start practicing the math associated with analyzing properties. How do you suggest I go about doing this? Should I just start finding properties on Redfin and performing the calculations called out in the Book on Rental Property investing? I don't know if it matters but I will need to look at properties that are outside of where I live since San Diego is very expensive.

Thank you all in advance!

Look for a market that is generally good for investors (fair laws, responsive justice system, healthy rent rates). Then narrow in on a local market that is growing. Then narrow it down to neighborhoods with strong schools because that's where good families live and they try to stay put until kids are graduated.

Get your math formulas written down. Build a simple spreadsheet. Practice plugging in the numbers. After doing a couple dozen houses, you'll start to get an idea of what it takes for a property to work or not, and you can "eyeball" a property and tell right away whether it's worth investigating further. This allows you to analyze more properties quickly.