What's the #1 MOST important thing to do when starting out?

Question

Hey all! 41 yr old W2 employee in a long standing family business getting ready to start out in REI. What did you find was the MOST important thing you did when starting out?

Thanks,

Rick

Matt K. · Answer

Become an expert in the area you want to invest. You should be able to talk about it like you grew up there. You understand the people, their employers, why/what they rent, and what they buy. You know the areas you can't walk at night or the most popular schools (even if they don't score high). You'll also know rents/prices so you can scroll through and eliminate the noise to focus on potential investments...

You should also understand your costs and how the account for them... Make sure your budgets are realistic to THE property and your investment goals. Hint this means moving past a flat % per month...m

Tenga S. · Answer

You should definitely join your local REIA group or some REI meetup group to network with others. It's nice to have a network of other investors in your area to listen to ideas and learn from.

Be wary  of all those GURU's out there who will try to get you to sign up with them and fork over tons of money to their "proprietary" information. Most of the investing information you can find for FREE on YouTube and get great advice. That's how I learned and do okay in the Atlanta area.

Good luck and Happy Investing!

Jim Pellerin · Answer

It depends what your long-term goals are.

If you just want to pick up a property here and there, then educated yourself and start doing by trial and error.

If you want to make a lot of money and want to acquire a lot of real estate fast, I would hire a mentor. I waited way too long to hire mine and I made a lot of mistakes along the way that ended up costing me a lot of money in the long run.

Richard Dale-Mesaros · Answer

I'd say two things:

1) The fortune is in the follow-up: have a CRM or any  other method to keep tabs on your leads and follow up on a regular basis, be patient!

2) Careful with the seductive attraction of all the free or paid education out there - consider that your time is perhaps best spent on lead generation vs gaining even more knowledge because if you get a deal, you can quickly get questions answered by BP, other buddies in the biz or your mentor(s). Happy to connect with you on BP if you like........

Onward!

Richard :)

Account Closed · Answer

@Richard Lovering DEFINE your long term goal and start behaving today as you would have to on that day you arrived at that target. Pay attention to best strategies for market phases. Learn how to scale. Make sure your early efforts are extremely profitable, they will propel your future efforts forward at an accelerated pace.

Cheers!

Richard Lovering · Answer

Thanks Tenga! Planning to attend my first local meetup this week!!

Randy Huang · Answer

Time and commitment.  I started out at least 30 minutes analyzing deals each night NO MATTER what.

Anthony Gayden · Answer

The most important thing I did when I started was analyzed deals. I looked at literally dozens of deals and created huge spreadsheets of data.

I also read a ton of books to make sure I was analyzing correctly. Finally I went out and looked at a ton of property in the city I wanted to invest.

By the time I put in my first offer I knew I had a good deal and my fears were so much less.

What's the #1 MOST important thing to do when starting out?

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