Starting Real Estate as an 18 year old college student

[Nick DeLuca]

Hey everyone! I’ve always had a huge interest in real estate, and now that I’m 18 I want to take that interest even further. I am from New Jersey and plan on attending college in California this upcoming fall. I’m searching for advice on how I could possibly get my foot through the door while also attending school. Any advice would be appreciated!

[Brendan Miller]

Hi @Nick DeLuca, awesome job getting started so early and identifying that you want to be in real estate. I'm curious how you landed on California to go school? The main downside of CA is that it's a high barrier to entry for real estate, whereas other midwestern or southern states would allow you to acquire property while you're in school. Not saying it's not possible in CA, just harder due to the upfront down payment requirements.

A couple recommendations:

1) Find a mentor, whether it's a family member, friend, local real estate agent that you ask to shadow for free, etc. You'll have the ability to learn a lot if you're able to hustle when you're young

2) Take advantage of the free resources you have to learn, such as BP, local REIAs, talk to your college's real estate or business student chapters, etc

3) If you have the opportunity, try to look at buying a property to use through college. Assuming that you're going to a 4 year college, you could buy a primary residence for 5% down and rent out bedrooms to roommates and live rent free while paying down your loan over that duration. You'd like need to have partners or have a parent co-sign the loan with you since.

4) Work through college - I worked through college full time and was able to pay off my student loan debt only 2 yrs after graduation. Student loan debt is a big hurdle preventing some people from being able to even get into real estate.

Good luck, you're in a good spot at 18!