New to real estate - Looking to buy in the next 3-9mo

[Eric Land]

Hi Everyone,

I am a newbie in regards to real estate and looking to learn. I am from the NY area and my wife and myself have decided that next year we will look to buy our first home.  We always thought we would end up on long island, but recent events makes it seem like we will likely be moving to the south Shore of CT next year.  We are actually excited about this because originally we were thinking in the 600-800k range (on LI), but we will likely be able to get something nicer in CT in the 300-500k range.  The towns were are interested in are West Haven, Milford, Hamden, range and surrounding area's in CT.  

We are not sure that we will settle down in CT for the rest of our lives, but will be there for at least 3 years.  So I would like to make an investment that I could potentially profit from for the rest of our lives.  I am open to all kinds of opportunities I just don't even no where to start.  Do I look at homes that need a lot of work, do i look at foreclosures, do I look at multifamily homes... I don't think it makes sense for us to buy something brand new as that would take a lot of potential profit out of the investment. 

Where does someone like myself start to figure out the right decision? 

Are there any podcast's or educational resources on this website you would recommend I check out? I see there are over 400 Bigger Pocket podcasts so I was going to look for a few that are for beginners.  

We are not looking to move till next July.  So we will probably start to look in January - February this way we have time for any necessary renovations prior.  So I am trying to dive in now and get educated. 

If you know any one in CT or resources for CT real estate, please send it my way

[Antonio Cucciniello]

@Eric Land When you are buying to live and then rent, it becomes a little more difficult than just renting it out.  But still doable.

Here are the four steps I would recommend you take in order to start.

1. Have a strategy - What kind of investing? What kind of properties? If you know what strategy you are going for you reduce a lot of the thoughts you had about switching between fixing and flipping vs buy and hold. Instead you can master the formulas behind each one

2. Pick a Location Based on Data: You need to pick a location, not based on emotions or feelings like "West Haven seems like a great place to invest." Instead, you should really take a look at the factors and data points that matter (crime rate, schooling, price to rent ratio etc). Picking one here will reduce the overwhelm and the choice fatigue you will have by looking at bunch of different properties in different markets, where the numbers are all different! Also it will make you compete with people that have more money than you, more information than you, more experience and a team full of people working with you. Instead you need to pool all your focus into one bucket, one market, one town.

3. Choose a Financing Strategy, Get a Pre-approval: Learning about the different financing strategies, speak to a lender, get a pre-approved. You need this to prove you are actually capable buying a house, so no sense in looking at any properties until you do this

4. Analyze Deals and Make Offers: Once you have gotten to the point where you approved to buy, the next thing to do is master the skill of analyzing deals. This is the most important skill (in my opinion). Analyze a deal everyday. Analyze every property that comes on your market. This way you can learn which ones work and which ones don't. Talk about the numbers with other investors in your market to get a good feel if you are in the right direction. Once you find one where the numbers work initially, go look at it, and be ready to put an offer in.

This is my 4 step process I teach, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!