Getting off the Ground

[Jon Stephens]

Good afternoon everybody!

I've lurked here for a bit here and there, but I've decided to take the plunge and post.  I'm not really sure where to begin and would welcome any sage advice.  I've had a successful corporate career for some time that affords me a pretty good income.  Combine that with my wife's exceptional ability to manage money, and we've built up a decent pool of capital that we'd like to put to work making better than the 10-15% / year we're getting out of traditional investments.  

I've looked into a few things that can be done while continuing in the day job, and the idea of investing in real estate keeps bubbling to the surface.  I love the idea, but don't have a clue where to begin.  Whenever I see success stories, they usually involve boot-strapping, or leveraging somebody you know from somewhere to give you some opportunity that you were able to martial forward to get the snowball rolling.

• We don't really have a network of people (friends and family are all in different states)
• We aren't Real Estate agents
• I don't have any handy-man/rehab skills

This sounds bad to me even as I write it, but all I really have going for me to get started is funding and a sincere interest in learning and growing myself.  When I start running the numbers, money starts slipping away for all the services that I would have to pay for out of pocket, and I start getting lost trying to figure out how it works so well for everybody else.  

So, I've decided to try something different and ask.  Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel from other people's stories, maybe I can start my own here by asking you all directly for advice.  Do I have enough to actually get things going?  If so, where do I even start that takes things past what I might get from a forum or a book you can purchase about how to make money doing flips?

Thanks in advance!  I'm grateful for any thread that will help me get some momentum.

[Ronald Allen Barney]

Funding is the biggest road block most beginners face so you've got a great starting position. I would suggest reading up on the fundamentals of the REI craft in a book like Gary Keller's "Million Dollar Real Estate Investor" (and there are many more good ones out there but that's just the one I've read), and even a precursor book like "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" to get a firmer foundation of general financial acumen, and then once you get a general idea, strike out and buy a property. It's guaranteed not to be a perfect deal as there will be some minor rookie mistakes, but even with mistakes a cash-flowing deal is valuable not only for that cash flow but also the practical training it gave you, and appreciation value when it happens (either this cycle or next), on top of tax shelter value, act as bonus 1 and bonus 2.