Mentorship/Advice needed, have a solid amount of start up cash but no experience

[Sandra B.]

My husband and I are really interested in getting into real estate, every year that passes without us acquiring a property feels like we're falling behind. We're financially very stable, we bring in 400-600k annually on average and also have about $200k in cash. Eventually we would like real estate to be our primary income but as of now we don't even know where to start. We've read books, searched through forums, watched videos, but every property I've found the numbers end up in the negative. I'm not looking for crazy cash flow but definitely not negative. We would love some hands on mentorship or really just advice from this forum. Thank you!

[Marcus Auerbach]

Contrary to popular believe, investing in real estate is not rocket science. Best advice I can give you after 15 years of investing is lower your expectations for your first deal. It's very easy to fall into the perpetual cycle of "but is it good enough?" questions when you look at investment opportunities.

Instead, just buy the best deal you can in the next couple months. If you want to learn how to swim, you can read books, watch video and have a 3 mentors: at some point you just have to get in the water.

Buy a quality property (you will never regret buying too MUCH quality; many have regretted the opposite) and as long you have positive gross cash flow the rest will take care of itself with time. You don't need to make a killer return on your first deal, that will come later, you just have to get started.

Also, only rookies try to time the market and it never works, because either they think the market is too hot and will crash soon, or they think it's too scary, because the market is depressed. Building a portfolio means that you are always buying. If you don't buy a property every let's say 3 months you'll never have a portfolio. 

Is it possible that FL prices are lower a year from now? Yes. But does that matter, when you are buying a long term hold portfolio. Absolutely not. And maybe prices don't come down, will you be waiting until they do? And how much? Long term real estate prices always go up, because the dollar we measure against is loosing value with inflation. Normally 2-3%, at the moment a bit more. So even if prices flatline, in reality that means they are going down.

Just get started.