Is there anything should be doing at the moment?

[Adam Lysak]

Hey everybody!

So, some quick background info. My name is Adam, I am currently in my 3rd year of Dental School. While I am totally new to real estate investing, I have always been interested in real estate. At this point in my career, I can make the time to get started.

Starting this year, I've been reading books on real estate including "The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Real Estate Investing" "Investing in Real Estate with no (and low) Money Down" and "The Book on Rental Properties". I've also been reading a variety of blogs on biggerpockets and I will be going to my first REI meet up this weekend.

I would really appreciate it if I could get someones advice on anything else that I can/should be doing in order to be "adequately" prepared and educated to make my first deal?

Also, fun question, if you could go back in time and advise yourself when you were just starting out in Real Estate Investing, what would you say?

Thank you!

[Daniel Hanson]

Adam Lysak
Welcome to BP and to Milwaukee. Its great that you are on a learning path.

I see on your profile that you are looking to buy a first multi-family by the end of the year. I think that's a great goal, and it suggests some immediate things you can do to move in that direction.

1) Find some listings on public websites for properties you might be interested in. Contact the listing agents that advertise on the sites where you find those properties. Get in touch with them, talk about the market, specific properties, and neighborhoods. Do 2 or 3 showings at different properties. Keep doing this until you develop a feel for the type of properties you really like, and the type of agent you work well with.

2) Choose one of these agents to be a buyer agent, based on personality, market knowledge, and their ability to work with investors. Your buyer agent can invest some time with you, because at some point in the future, they expect to earn a commission. They should set you up with a buyer portal on the MLS, and then the fun really begins.

3)Start analyzing good and bad properties like crazy on the MLS portal. Download some of the very good analysis Excel files on the BP file site, and tweak the file to your needs as you learn more and more about your market, about investing in general, and what excites you in terms of return on investment. Try to understand what causes properties to sell quickly or slowly, and the difference between sold price vs. asking.

4) Once you've analyzed several properties now it's time to get a few showings with your buyer agent. Download some inspection checklists so you can get good at walking through a property, determining repairs needed and other details on a property. Eventually, you'll only do showings if a property looks good in your analysis first, but in the beginning, do as many showings as you can just to get a physical feel for the properties in the market.

5) At this point you'll probably be chomping at the bit to buy something so now it's time to start building a team. Go to the REIA and/or meet ups, ask questions on BP to get recommendations for lenders, mentors, contractors, indpectors, property managers, potential partners, accountants, lawyers, title companies, etc.

6) Time to... put on the brakes! At least long enough to put a plan together regarding your goals. Do you want just 1 multi-family rental, or several? Do you have room for flipping in your strategy as a cash builder? Are there minimum returns you want to see per property or neighborhoods that you're focusing on ? Will you find your properties on MLS , through direct marketing, or some other method? The reason this is step 6 and not step 1, until you get somewhat far down the education path, it's hard to create a decent plan.

7). Go execute your strategy! Tweak your strategy as you learn or run into problems.