Questions to ask potential mentor / mutual acquaintance who is a successful investor

[Tony Leighty]

Hello all,

Since I'm just starting out, I wanted to reach out to industry professionals and get their first hand advice and ultimately hope to get a mentor in the process.  Turns out a friend of my sister is an investor in Florida and she mentioned that I reached out to him to pick his brain and see if he was willing to help me learn the ropes.  Sure enough I emailed him and he was more than willing to help stating he'd be happy to get me going in the right direction.   However, I want to be prepared on the call and have a couple questions I'd like to ask but wanted to get everyone's take, what questions would you ask to someone that could potentially jump start your career in real estate investing?

Thanks in advance!

[Robert Leonard]

@Tony Leighty As I do more and more networking, I'm getting mentoring requests more and more frequently.  To avoid appearing like you want to be spoon fed, do some things that will show that you are willing to make a personal contribution to your learning by doing the things that are easy to do on your own.  Here's what I recommend.

HOMEWORK

Start getting to know your market.  People in the RE industry spend a lot of money on marketing and that makes a lot of information available to you for free.  Pick up every free RE related publication in your area.  They are full of market intelligence that will help you start to learn values in your area.  You will soon know what areas are hot and which ones are not.  Do you think knowing a little about your market will allow you to engage in conversation a potential mentor might be happy to discuss?

Start reading books from the REI recommendations that are abundant. If you listen to the BP podcasts, there are 2-3 recommended books at the end of every podcast. There's also a list found here:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/04/14/best-real-estate-books/

I would start with "The Millionaire Real Estate Investor" by Gary Keller. Do you think a mentor might enjoy discussing how Gary lost 100k on an REI investment?

NETWORK

Get out and do some networking and build relationships. Avoid the tendency to go for the jugular with something like "Hi, I'm Tony, I'm looking for a mentor?" Consistently being there at a regular REIA meeting and engaging in the conversation of the day will go far to show your commitment to the business. I'm in two REIAs and you would be amazed at how many "one and done" newbies that you never see again. Do you think someone who has a active business would be smart to commit to mentoring someone the first time they meet them?

FINANCES

What's your personal financial picture look like?  If it's in order, great!  If it's not, what are you doing to get it in order?  There's a whole lot you can do to position yourself to be able to invest.  If you have limited financing options, you have to use more of the strategies that are long shots and that means you will be a challenge to mentor.  With your finances in order, you can start establishing credit accounts with vendors like Lowe's or Home Depot that can help you accomplish renovations of properties.  Having your finances in order is also something that allows you to offer the possibility of being a finance partner on deals where you bring the financing and the mentor, brings the know how.  Just some things to think about.

If you do these things and are prepared to talk about what you've done and show some evidence of your effort and willingness to take action, it will go a long way toward giving you some credibility as someone who's serious about getting into this business.

Sorry this is so long.  I started my response this morning and got distracted by a football game.  I just realized I never finished/sent my response. :-)