New comer from Springfield, Missouri

[Brant Vaught]

Hey everyone!

Little bit about me; my name is Brant Vaught, I am 23 years old, and made the mistake that I am sure many of you made at some point, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad several years ago and decided that I wanted to end up in real estate. LOL. My experience is nill. I have been dancing around real estate for roughly three years now and have made the decision that come hell or high water I am going to get started this year. That said, I am new to the scene, and if there are any tips that some of you experienced guys and gals can spare, I would love to hear from you.

I started my own business two years ago, after spending two years in sales. Grew the business up, sold it, and am working to get my real estate sales license.

I would love to get advice and thoughts of investing so feel free.

[Aaron Montague]

@Brant Vaught

I recommend buying an owner occupied 2-4 family property as your first investment. It will give you a taste of just about everything relevant to working in the "Buy and Hold" portion of real estate.

From my BP blog:

Q: I like the concept of MFH investing, where should I start?

Short Response:

1. Eliminate your rent payment
2. Bring all deals to the BP community (and be humble when doing so)
3. Stick to the returns you want

Long Response:
Learn everything you can about multi family investing. Every day you should answer a few questions and write down several new ones.

The general theory is that you need to drive costs out of your life and/or add new revenue. If you live with your parents, and they don't charge you rent, good. I'd then start forcing yourself to put $500-700 away each month as a "rental" payment towards some real estate.

If you pay rent of any kind, to your folks or to another landlord, find a way to eliminate it from your life. My suggestion is to find a 3 or 4 family property that you can purchase. FHA loans are a good way to go, but be wary of the additional percentage points you have to pay each month as PMI. Homepath loans are great as they have no PMI. VA loans are even better, but require you to have served in the US military.

Run every deal you find through the BP community. Some of the responses are harsh, but they are eye opening. There are people on this site that have been buying and selling 4x as long as I have. When I find answers to my daily questions, I can almost always find the answers here at BP.

Last one for the moment: stick to your numbers. It bears repeating: stick to your numbers. If you want $200/month and a 12% Cash on Cash return for your investment, stick to that number. If you pick 12%, 9% is not good enough, nor is 11.7%. Make your offers accordingly.