I'm Unsure of my Next Steps

[Jesse Meyer]

I am 20 years old and live in Minnesota, I recently got a new job that requires an hour commute so I decided to turn to podcasts instead of listening to the same songs over and over. When I stumbled upon the Bigger Pockets podcast I ended up listening to 3 episodes in 1.5x speed and couldn't get the thought out of my head for the entire shift. Fast forward a week or so and I've read articles and listened to podcasts and done research on investing but I cant seem to wrap my head around what my next steps should be.

I have the beginnings of a plan of attack but the part I'm not understanding is my next step to take. I understand the risk and I'm having trouble making the leap into it.

[Scott Passman]

@Jesse Meyer Congrats on getting the "bug". Honestly, the next step you should take is to sit down and spend some time thinking and clarifying what exactly you want to get from REI and out of life. Do you want additional income streams, build enough monthly cash flow to retire early, utilize real estate to build wealth over the long haul, reduce your monthly living expenses, build a new career out of it etc? There are so many different avenues and ways to get involved that you need to have some clarity on what you are working towards.

After that, I think the 2 best places to start are to begin networking with other investors via local real estate meet ups or reaching out to people in your area on BP and possibly looking to house hack a first investment.  If I could go back in time, I would have house hacked with a 2-4 unit building every year for the first couple years to both save on my living expenses and speed up the acquisition process for building a nice portfolio.  House hacking is such a powerful tool and doing it when you are young and single is a great way to learn how to manage a property, analyze deals, interact with others, build relationships, and it tends to be very forgiving with mistakes because of the money you can save each month on living expenses.