Trying to get started in Real Estate

[Matthew Duprey]

Good Morning, My name is Matt and I'm making this my first post in the hopes that someone can help, or lead me in the correct direction. I have been fixing and updating my own house and family members houses for 4 years. I'm currently in search for a new home myself as my current family has out grown our current one. In the search we have seen so many houses, where it looks like a company has gone in, rehabbed it, done a shotty job or just down right poor work. Every time we look at one, I keep thinking to myself I could have done so much better. My wife and I have thought about it for years, but my income currently supports the entire household. So you taking the risk is well risky.

I guess my question is how do I get someone to help fund me to do the business? I can't fund buying a house and paying for the renovation on my own. My wife and I have a done a great job in our personal finances as the only debt we has is our home. We only have another 70K left on that. I don't have friends that are financially able to help as suggested in some of the pod casts. Does that mean I have no chance in getting a private lending investor? I was interested in doing a hard money loan, and then private lending to cover the 20%, but again I come into the issue of not knowing anyone that can financially help.

Additional questions. If I do find funding, and get my business going. Would you sign a contract to guarantee to work with a Private Lender for a specific period of time. For instance if we are splitting profit 50/50 and I save up enough to go out on my own in 8 or 9 months not needing the lender anymore. Would it be courtesy to continue to work with the lender for a specified time showing your appreciation for there support in helping me get started?

Anyone that has been in my situation, or knows of any real world valuable information that would help me get my business started, I would be truly grateful.

God Bless Matt

[Erik W.]

@Matthew Duprey, hi and welcome to BP!

Okay, let's get down to business....first, I want to know what it is you want to do. Your title says, "Trying to get started in real estate." It sounds like you have skill as a handyman/rehabber. That would fit well with the BRRRR model or the flip model. But, as you have no doubt found out, there's much more to real estate than fixing stuff.

Investors sometimes work on their own properties when starting up, but that limits the scope of how much you can do.  Most guys I know who work on their own flips do 4-6 deals per year, max.  If that's enough for you: great!  But BP also have a lot of people wanting to grow out to 50, 100, 200, 500, or 1000+ "doors", which obviously would take a very long time doing everything yourself.

Step 1: What is your real estate business going to look like?  Buy and hold?  Fix and flip?  Full time, part time? Hands off, hands on?  Self-manage, hire it out?  SFHs, MFs, commercial, self-storage, short-term rentals/AirBnb?  Etc.

Let's get that figured out before trying to decide if signing binding financing documents is a good idea or not.