Suggestions on Value to bring to the Investing World?

Question

Hello everyone!!,

I am entering the investor arena. Right now I'm prepping my finances and planning to break into this business. With the last 10 years as a Retail Investigator and catching fraudsters and thieves, Im looking to expand my earning ceiling and going into Real Estate. What could one with 10 years experience in Asset Protection do to provide value to current Investors while I learn some techniques?

Bill Gulley · Answer

Mark, welcome to BP!

I'm not sure I really follow you, you want to know what skills you could bring to an investor in return for mentoring or as Chris was thinking, some business you could provide, can you be more specific?

Saying a "retail investigator" to me, is the guard at the department store watching the cameras and through one way mirrors for shoplifters. That job description could go into corporate security devising security procedures for employees in a warehouse, auditing invoices, shipping manifests, inventory audits and setting in place audit trails to manage inventories as loss mitigation activities. After a loss has been suffered, some investigators will work in the recovery of money or higher end merchandise and coordinate with law enforcement or insurance claims. None of these specialties really relates to RE investing per se.

What you do have are people skills and perhaps a nose for scammers, cheats, fraudulent low life types, that are in RE. That type of nose can serve you very well in any business including RE, as we have more than our share. If that could be turned into money, please let me know, LOL, we could make a ton in the forums identifying them but it becomes the job of regulators, not citizens to profit from catching the bad apples.

Another skill is having an analytical approach to problem solving and an ability to understand rules, regulations and laws and turning road blocks into opportunities. You may understand the intent of a law or regulation is just as important as the written version that so many try to circumvent not seeing the expectations and restriction to work under.

Attention to detail is critical in business, some things require deeper due diligence upon discovery of other facts that often are not recognized. Any investigator will have this asset once they understand the methods used and the transaction flow of business operations.

Did you have arrest powers? If so, you would make a good landlord and negotiator after learning the rules and the basics, in dealing with some contractors too, they have a talent for being forceful if necessary ....LOL

I'm taking your post more to assisting a mentor, that can just be research and leg work.

If you're asking how to bring value to a transaction, that's a book and this is already too long! :)

Chris Martin · Answer

One thought off the top of my head... develop protocols/best practices for out-of-state property owners to monitor their property managers. It comes down to accountability. I frequently see posts about owners suspecting PM companies or individuals of committing fraud or theft. I've not explored how a management company would implement the proper controls, but can say that the company I work for has developed a more robust process after one of our out-sourced PM companies embezzled rent payments and security deposits.

Mark Ruiz · Answer

Awesome feedback guys. Bill G., you really hit the head on the nail with what I do. Ive pretty much explored everything in the corporate security world and well, Im getting bored. My intention is to invest but in order to learn this business, I wanted to get feedback from those skills as to what I can offer investors in exchange for knowledge of this industry. I really like the ideas of services to offer which I am going to investigate more further. Being in the scammer/thief world as one that investigates it, they are in every business. Its just learning the business and identifying the scammers which I can see a lot of with out of state landlords/investors.

Thanks again.

Jerry W. · Answer

@Mark Ruiz  Welcome to BP.  I am currently a prosecutor.  I think @Chris Martin and @Bill G. have given you things to think about.  perhaps you could run a service for local investors who want to invest out of state.  They pay you to check up on the company to see if they are scammers or legit, and to maybe even see how competitive they are.  You could maybe be even more involved in monitoring the company once they have purchased properties and research for alternative companies if they become dissatisfied with their current manager.  Be sure to read through the Learn section above, it has an amazing amount of information in it.  I hope to see you posting more in the future.  Good luck

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