Where to start/any advice helps

[Blake Johnson]

Hello everyone, I’m a 21 year old from the Northern California area. Just getting started out in real estate and trying to get myself pointed in the right direction. Investing and real estate has always been a goal of mine, so I’m reaching out in hopes of a little advice.

I’ve grown up around construction as my father and uncle both own company’s. With that I feel like my strong suit would be flipping houses, again just not sure if that’s the right place to start. I’ve been working and saving for a good down payment on a house or buy cash, just hesitant to do so.

What do you recommend would be a good first step? Thank you!!

[Alex Breshears]

I'm going to be a bit different here and saying the place to start is asking yourself questions. You say you always wanted to invest in real estate, and I agree that is a wonderful thing, but what is it you want from investing? Are you looking for passive income? Want to build a large sum of money to buy another business or even your father's business? Real estate is a vehicle to your own goals, not THE goal.  There are a ton of ways to invest in real estate, much more than flipping houses and being a landlord. Like TONS more. 

So here are some examples of what I would really spend some time with pen to paper and think about.

1. What is my personal goal? How will I know when I have achieved it?

2. What do you want your life to look like while investing? (Various methods require different amounts of time on your part in order to continue moving forward, flipping houses falls into one of the most time intensive options). Do you want time freedom? Geographical freedom?

3. Who else would you want on this journey with you? No man (or woman) is an island. Figuring out who you need with you to accomplish the goal can help you be on the lookout for when those opportunities arise.

4. What's your timeline to get to the goal? Real estate is not a sprint, it's a marathon! How quickly you want to get to a goal or need to get to a goal will eliminate some options and bring others to the forefront.

5. How do you see your life once you have hit your goal? Yes, owning 20 single family homes as rentals sounds great in podcast titles, but I know plenty of landlords that are just tired. They worked for years to build and buy rentals, only to find out they spend a larger portion of their time fixing issues or doing book keeping, or the sundry number of things involved with owning rentals. Yes you can hire property managers, but you often still have to manage the manager, plus keep the books for tax time, plus have capital reserves for surprise repairs or unit turn overs. It's a lot to manage. So knowing what your expectations are after you have hit your goal can also help eliminate some options. 

Think of the long term plan first, and then work backwards!  Good luck!