Credibility and Age

[Account Closed]

Hello

I just finished watching the pod cast with Brian Burke and on the pod cast they touched on starting out. They seemed to agree that the "ideal" way to starting out is finding a mentor rather than maxing out credit cards; however, Brian brought up a great point. At a young age, what mentor will take you under his/her wing. (No hands on experience, only work experience is bagging groceries, and looking young/inexperienced). Sort of describes me. So for all of those who were in this boat or have taking apprentices in this boat as a mentor, what were your secrets to getting past this phase to gain some experience under your belt? What do you say to get a mentor when you lack real estate experience?

Additionally, Once you do get started in the business and you are out and about on your own, Do sellers take you serious? The podcast touched on this a bit and I would like to hear more stories. I am in a high end residential area and fear that when I do get started, many of these people won't take me serious in making deals because they don't think I am serious.

I heard a lot of debate about becoming licence or not as an investor. Still not sure where I stand, but recently I have been thinking obtaining one would be best for me in terms of credibility at my age. I have no hands on experience in real state whatsoever. Would obtaining my licence and learning the market from a real estate agent make me more appealing for mentorship and deal making ?

[Robert Leonard]

@Account Closed I started where you are, no experience, no family in the business or any related fields, but I figured out one thing that is the key to anything you want to learn - I know how to read. Anything you ever want to learn, I bet you can find a lot of good books written by very accomplished people in any field. Library cards are free (to users, thanks to tax payers). Now we have this cool Internet thing and you can access the library from the palm of your hand anywhere you are anywhere you can get on a computer!

When you have more time than money, commit to learning and finding out the lowest entry point that you can access to get your foot in the door. That doesn't mean, buy something in the worst neighborhood that will be the most hands on management challenge ever. It means learn your market and the surrounding area market that's within reasonable commuting distance. If you are in a high end market, look outside of it. Go to REIA meetings and just be a sponge, learn, learn, and learn some more and start getting to know people in the business.

If you have a little money, do a little investing in a ROTH IRA. If you don't know what that is, look it up. You can start investing in good quality low cost mutual funds in that ROTH IRA now and start putting your money to work now. Don't put any lump sums in there all at once. Follow the "dollar cost averaging" technique and over the long run, the ups and downs of the market will work to your advantage. I know this site is all about real estate investing, but this will allow you to create a pool of money to invest in real estate one day, that will allow you tax free growth of your real estate investments. That's after you convert it to a self-directed ROTH IRA. You don't want to start with a self-directed account right now, you need to build up some capital and you can only put $5.5k per year into a ROTH IRA (if you are married, your spouse can open her own account and contribute the same amount).

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/whatweoffer/ira/roth?WT.srch=1

I invest with Vanguard, but I am not an employee, nor do I receive any compensation from them in any way.

Just take it serious and take the business approach to real estate and avoid thinking it is a game. No matter how many times you hear people say, just jump in the game, you learn from your failures. If you just jump in, you are likely to break a leg. If you know what you are doing and follow some pretty well proven strategies (you can learn them all here and in a few good books) that you understand before you jump in, you can always scrape a knee or get an unexpected nick or cut, but you won't break a leg and get seriously hurt. Sorry to put you through metaphor overload, but I hope that all makes sense to you.