Real Estate struggles, advice please!

[Nadine Delille]

Hello everyone, I need some advice please. I have been struggling to get into real estate investing. I've been reading a lot of articles, watching videos joined different real estate investor sites such as BP. Everywhere I look people make it sound so easy, but it is not at all especially if you don't have a lot of funds to invest. I spent money on programs to train me, been to meet ups for networking and still nothing. Initially I was starting with wholesaling b/c I have minimal to no funds to get started. So, I worked with some real estate agents to find distressed properties, found some cash buyers but still got no where, more so because the agents I worked with that claimed to be investor friendly knew nothing about wholesaling . Then I thought about rehabbing properties but not enough funds. When things didn't go as planned, I became discouraged and stopped trying for a while. After some time, I am back at it again because I am not going to give up! I just need help and some guaidance. I plan on moving out of my parents house and have been thinking about starting off with rentals or "house hacking" but I am unsure if that is the route to go.? Any experts or those that have struggled initially can you please share your experience and advice on what I should do to get the ball rolling. I really want to succeed in real estate investing. P.S. I am saving money too.

[Khenkis K.]

@Nadine Delille Not sure if this is will help you but this is what helped me. When I started out I was doing everything too. Driving for dollars, attending REIAs, you name it and I've most likely dabbled with it in some form or another. Yet, no solid "financial" results. Just what's going on?! I was glad and proud that I was actually doing stuff and, most importantly, learning. However, at the end of the day, dreaded bills needed to be paid and you know the rest.

That's when I stopped doing everything not because I was discouraged but because I needed to invest some time into identifying what variables I was either missing or leading me amidst. One simple yet extremely powerful thought quickly flew into my mind, "return to the basics".

Okay, what does that even mean? Exactly! What does that mean?! I asked myself that as I proceeded to iterate and categorize my knowledge into the "what I have a decent understanding of" pile and the "yeah bud...you need to learn more about me" batch.

As soon as I started this culling process, Thee Answer slapped me right in the face! *Smack* It kind of hurt too. Nah, I'm just kidding. :p The origin of my dilemma was the undeniable fact that I didn't know what business was! Let me put it this way.

John: "Oh hey! You're a Realtor?!"

Mary: "Yes, I am."

John: *Makes mental note* Okay, you're a business woman in real estate. CHECK!!!

John: "Oh hey! You're a real estate investor?!"

Joe: "Yes, I am."

John: *Makes mental note* Okay, you're a business man in real estate. CHECK!!!

John: "Oh hey! You're a private real estate lender?!"

Jill: "Yes, I am."

John: *Makes mental note* Okay, you're a business woman in finance and real estate. CHECK!!!

Notice how all these hypothetical individuals are involved in business before anything else. Well, yours truly was was putting real estate before business! So, I set off on a quest to learn about business and that's when I discovered a book that has forever changed my life since then - The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman. I cannot do enough justice in describing the power behind the material in this book so you'll just have to go check it out yourself.

Let's just say that, before, I was like a bull running around in a China shop. All this vigorous energy oozing out of my essence and there I was; splattering it around everything like a three year old kid frolicking around in a muddy rain puddle! AHH YEAH!!!

To be honest, that giddy energy hasn't diminished one tiny bit and has only grown stronger. LOL However, I'm no longer flinging it around aimlessly like a rampageous toddler. I'm now extremely disclipined in managing exactly where and how much I need to exert and channel for maximum efficiency, what methodologies I need to implement/introduce/test into my systems along with the analytics of such, etc.

This is what helped me. Perhaps it'd be a catalyst for you as well?