Advice for Physician on Building a Team and Starting

[Seth B.]

Hi folks,

I'm new to Real Estate Investing and was hoping to solicit some ideas on the key initial steps. As background, I'm a physician interested in multifamily and NNN commercial REI, and have tried to do my due diligence with self-education (read some books, worked on excel models, etc.). The hard part for me is overcoming some of that early inertia/paralysis and finding a way to build a team and look through appropriate properties. I live in a high COL area (NYC), where--and especially starting, where I'm likely to make lots of humbling mistakes--the entry point and learning curve in this area feels prohibitive. I've looked at loopnet and zillow, but I'm not sure if this is the optimal way of starting out- especially without much guidance. Turnkey properties are very tempting for obvious reasons, but from what I read there is a strong argument that the trade-off of relative passivity for diminished returns isn't optimal.

For somebody like me starting out, how would you find optimal regions to start assessing commercial Real Estate and what would you identify--after already studying for a few months--as the most important initial steps in getting started?  How does one find a reputable, honest team and seek mentorship?

sorry for such a lengthy, multi-questioned initial post and thanks so much for your thoughts!

Seth