Advice for a motivated college student

[Colby Chaney]

Hello everyone,

My name is Colby. I am a senior at NCSU/UNC studying biomedical engineering. In the past few months I've become quite interested in real estate. I aim to have my real estate license in the next two weeks. I also started taking a real estate class at school and have been learning everyday as much as I can. A year ago my plan was to take a gap year after I graduatd. Now I would like to spend that time starting a property management company. I have a partner and I believe we can do good. His father owns properties and has been teaching us how to manage them. I've been doing a lot of research on my own. Thst is my goal for a career. If not I go work a corporate job. Is this a false reality? I believe I have what it takes and will take care of the tenant/owner. Furthermore, I want to invest the money I make from that into real estate of my own where I can perform BRRR. I have done a lot of research in buying, rehabing, and renting a property. I have proper financing through my uncle and also money that I have inherited. My goal is to have an investment property within the next year and start rehabing to get tenants in asap. I have been endlessly searching for deals on mls, off market like facebook and auctions. I haven't had any luck finding a good deal, or maybe I just don't know what a good deal is. I want to learn what a good deal is and how to find one. I want to invest and have tenants of my own to mange for good experience. Can someone give me some advice? I would like to hear some different opinions on my plans and goals and how I can get there. Anything will help AND PLEASE DONT BE AN AI CHATBOT. 

I truly appreciate it if made it this far. It means a lot!

[James Hamling]

Hi @Colby Chaney, first off I appreciate your ambition but what really stands out that I want to highlight and applaud is how humble you are, recognizing what you don't know and tempering assumptions as just that, assumptions. That common sense is all too uncommon nowadays. 

Now I'm going to challenge your entire thesis, bear with me here. 

Real Estate is a very big industry, with that the most common affliction that plagues people is "Shiny Object Syndrome". This has been the ruin of many. 

Your path, and end-goal, don't make sense to me. 

I challenge you to look at it all in reverse order, yes, reverse engineer it. 

If your end goal is to be an investor, doing BRRRR, ask yourself what resources, skills and operations will you need if your doing that.

Your going to need deal flow. But not any old deal flow right, your going to need deal flow that best fit's for BRRRR. Ok, what are common ingredients for that? That it needs reno, or holds improvement potential. And what is the best types, outdated, long deferred maintenance, not major structural repair kind of stuff.

Ok, so what kind of "deals" best fit this mold? Hands down it's estate deals/properties. 

Now we ask our confirmation statement, is estate deals a viable segment, is there regular volume? Well, as I like to joke, people are dying to work with me, and yes, death is a regularized thing with no prospects of changing, people die, people with properties die, yes it is viable as a segment. 

See how we reverse engineered that? 

You'll find Property Management fit's nowhere into things, and thus it's a "Shiny Object". Starting a Property Management company will serve to distract you from your end-goal. Not to mention it's a declining business, soon to be eviscerated by ai. 

The next main component of your end goal is the resources to do a BRRR, as in the remodeling work. Now one can do that via networking with GC's but if were going Full-Monty to that dream reverse engineering would say start a GC business NOT a PM business.

For your stated end-goal, the path is clear to me; 

- Get licensed in real estate and focus as an agent with a niche of Estate & Probate. Sprinkle in the Reno-4-Resale and Sell-as-is. And a laser focus as a Listing Agent. That achieves deal flow. 

- Get the applicable licenses and knowledge to be a GC, and start a GC business NOT a PM business. Focus with that business on the niche of renovation, namely cosmetic renovation, and ignore all the "Shiny Objects" that could distract you there like new-con work and what not. 

Put these 2 together and you've got a hell of a winning recipe. 

This correct system creates feed back loops for your desired end-goal. As the reno GC buy opportunities will come out of it, as will client potentials. On the agent side reno opportunities will come out of it. And with the GC aspect for reno, it lends opportunity to turn your competing R.E. agents into clients for reno. 

This whole feed back loop aspect helps build network. And network = $$$$. 

Notice how a PM company does not fit into this anywhere? Again, it's a "shiny object". It will suck time and resources from the things that matter most. 

If you do some research into the most successful people you will find a common thread that they say NO to most things. They get very focused on a most limited # of things that are most straight line for end goals. 

Let that which does not matter, truly not matter. 

I get swamped by ideas and suggestions all the time of things I "could" be doing. Yeah, I know, I "could" this that or the other, and sure it would make some $, but I don't care. I don't care because it does not serve the central end-goal focus in an impactful way. 

I focus on my 1-3 things. What is the 1-3 things of highest most impactful importance to move the needle, and I take on those. Everything else, I let fall to the sides. 

It's really that 20% of things that holds 80% of impact.

How to identify, reverse engineer.