What should i be doing untill i purchase my first deal?

[Lucas Hannon]

Hello everyone, I'm currently in the Houston TX market and am waiting to purchase my first multifamily deal. I've been talking with my real estate agent and have an idea of what ill do. My plan is to house hack the first year and then rinse and repeat. I'm waiting until i get more capital and cash reserves to have for when i do purchase, so in the mean time ive been looking briefly on the property's my real estate agent has been sending me. essentially i was wondering what should i be doing while I'm waiting and working towards my first purchase. Should i be analyzing cap rate on these properties? I don't want to analyze deals to deep because i wont buy for maybe another 8 months or so but is there anything yall can recommend that i can be doing now to help me when it comes down to analyzing deals? any websites that go over current trends i should be aware of or any like rule books i should be reading before hand hahah. Anything helps I'm just trying to get an idea of how this step in the process looks for other investors. Thanks -  Lucas Hannon

[Mae Galang]

Hi there,

Pretty new to REI as well.

Things I've done to gain knowledge:

-Listen to BP podcast

-Read RE books

-Enrolled in a RE course (I take an exam in a few months to obtain my license)

-Look at listings throughout the day in states I've been eye-ing

-Analyze potential deals by plugging numbers in a spreadsheet (to calculate what ROI will be first year, second year, etc)

-Been reaching out to seasoned RE investors

-Saving more $ to increase capital

Good luck to us! We got this!