Critique Me - I'm Preparing for my 1st Purchase

[Nick Vriend]

Hi Guys,

I am currently at the beginning stages of studying real-estate investing and I am looking for any feedback to help me asses my level "readiness" to start executing on my first deal. Any advice or resources are more than welcome. Personally I feel more comfortable being on the over-prepared side (whilst avoiding analysis paralysis) vs. being purely an executor and jumping straight into a bad deal. Here is a high level summary of how I've prepared so far:

Books I've read: 1) ABC's of Real-estate investing, 2) Real Estate Investing in Canada, 3) The Book on Rental Property Investing. 

- I try to keep notes organized and create checklists and procedures to refer to later (for property analysis, & due diligence, etc.).

Courses (cheap or free): 1) Neal Bawa's Multifamily Bootcamp: Neal has a great data driven market analysis approach that ranks markets based on population growth, job growth, crime rates, affordability, etc. 2) Break Into CRE's Single Family Home Financial Analysis: This goes through an in-depth institutional excel model to forecast expected cashflow.

Other: I spend a lot of time on YouTube watching popular real-estate videos, but I find books and courses have more detail. I also listen to some podcasts but again, the information density is low so I tend to go towards books and free/cheap courses.

I have ~30k saved up to invest in my first property at this point. I am really interested in the multi family asset class (commercial) but I think my first step will be a single family home or small multi unit (4 units or less) in order to gain some experience and knowledge before complicate things and overwhelm myself, also raising capital seems is a huge time commitment on its own. One of my challenges is that I live in Canada, I love the US real-estate market but cross border financing is not that attractive so i will be forced to learn how to do seller financing. Alternatively i can invest in a less attractive Canadian market and reap the benefits of first home time buyer loans (5% down) but housing is expensive here so it wont take me very far & my market options will be limited.

My area of improvement believe is "boots on the ground" and networking. I really need to start involving myself in the community as I don't have any other friends or family that are passionate about real-estate investing to discuss with. knowing someone that could watch over my shoulder as i navigate my first deal would be ideal but also a privilege.  This post will be my first step in and hopefully connecting with some of you to share ideas!

Any Advice?