Aspirations of A Young Investor Wannabe

[Raquel Pea]

Hello BP!

My name is Raquel. I'm 21 years old and currently studying economics in college and debating if I really want to transfer to UC Berkeley to pursue my degree. I'm worried about incurring student debt and ultimately holding back my RE goals. I know this is a very gray area, but advice from those with experience would help me immensely in my journey. Laziness does not play into my hesitation of pursuing a degree. I have a 4.0 GPA, am co-president of the Architecture club, and I thoroughly enjoy the process of learning and interacting with my peers. Sometimes I just get this gut feeling that I need to dive head-first into what has been calling me for years...

Let me tell you a bit about my goals! First of all, I have had a passion for real estate since I was about 10 years old, when I began searching Trulia and Zillow to study and "plan" my future investments. I am currently building my credit while living in a four bedroom home where I rent out 3 of the rooms through AirBnB. The rent is now completely covered and I have positive cash flow coming in.

Now that I am living rent free, I've enrolled in real estate classes and plan on getting licensed in order to learn all I can about the housing market here in West Oakland, as well as to build relationships with others in the RE fields. I have also been spending a lot of time on BP listening to podcasts and reading through the forums, which is amazing!

My plan of action is to continue building my credit and experience as a realtor, and to use RE wholesaling to build the initial funds needed to invest in my first multi-family home. Then I will use the BRRRR method (Buy, Rehab, Refinance, Rent out, Repeat) to continue building my portfolio. I'm just not sure where a college degree comes into play.

I appreciate any and all advice. Hopefully soon I will be able to return the favor and offer some of my very own advice!

All the best,

Raquel Pea

[Chris Mason]

Welcome. 

UC Berkeley was an amazing experience. Comparing notes with folks that went to other schools confirms this for me whenever it comes up. I can't decide for you if it is worth it or not. I was there post-Occupy and pre-BLM, so I guess I missed part of the experience (the cause du dour part) however.

I've heard of folks getting involved in RE early, as you have. There's also the whole "get your RE license and do rentals for fellow college kids" route. 

Summer internships in the offices of real estate and/or mortgage firms wouldn't be a horrible idea. You would learn to sell in the RE office, and learn to apply math to real estate analysis in the mortgage broker's office. Some of us actually use algebra on a daily basis, believe it or not. (No offense to escrow officers, but I don't think you'd learn much in one of those offices...)