Investing in Real Estate as a College Student

[Summer Crawford]

Hello, BiggerPockets Community.

I'm a college student looking to invest in multi-family rental properties in my area (Lafayette, LA). Right now, I don't have enough money to buy a rental property, so I'm spending the meantime saving up money and learning as much as possible about real estate. I was just wondering if anyone else is in a similar position.

[Henry Clark]

@Summer Crawford

Apartment hack.  Move into a 2 to 3 bedroom/?bath.  Your objective is to reduce your rent costs as much as possible.  But you are responsible for paying the total rent.

Pick an REI area. You need to do 5 to 10 property analysis before you even think about investing. This will force your education. Pick properties that fit your approach that are "listed". That way the information and numbers are readily available. Take your brother along for this ride.

By your 5th analysis, want you to "make an offer". "Subject to due diligence, inspection, and financing". Do it at $30,000 below asking price. Don't worry your offer will be turned down immediately. If it is accepted you will either not accept due to lack of financing or inspection. This is for you to learn the "emotional" side of making an REI investment. Document the process and paperwork, as part of your checklist.

Computer Science is not a common field, but a "Great" field for REI. Take the "system" approach you are learning in CS and start developing a process list and a checklist with each deal you analyze. You want to get your "error" or "miss" rate down to about 90%, so you have everything covered. If you screw up on your first deal, it will be small.

Analyze simple deals, save the big ones for later.  Needs landscaping, new carpet, new roof, new indoor or outdoor paint job, a little plumbing work.  Just one or two of these items.  Your first deal will make little money or a break even; but low risk.  No structural, tearing down walls, adding rooms, foundations, etc.  

Bring your deals back to Bigger Pockets and ask people to analyze them.  Based on their comments, keep sharing your checklist and building on it.  Ask people to critique your checklist.  Just like Computer Science start top down first.  Compartmentalize it, don't do random concepts.

I can't help you too much.  I'm a Northwestern and LSU fan.