Hi! New to all this and would like any and all advise possible!

[Eric Espinosa]

My name is Eric and I'm really interested in real estate. I've been here before but I don't know, maybe it was just fear, maybe me just being an idiot, I don't know. I've been to all the seminars, watched all the videos, read the books, yet here I am, not doing a damn thing. All of them promise the same thing - no money, no credit needed. Is it just me or is it just a joke? I've done the asking friends and family, tried finding investors - I run a small business selling and installing home theater equipment, so I've met a lot of wealthy people - but still can't even come up with enough to just front the money myself to get this going. I've gone as far as finding a company that'll find and assess the homes and literally show me what the potential earnings are after flipping and I can't even do that. Am I doing something wrong? Call me a knucklehead perhaps, but you fall so you can learn to pick yourself back up, right? 

My overall goal, incorporate my home theater knowledge into flipping homes and making it so anyone can achieve entertainment at home. Yes I know, that's not what sells the homes and makes no ROI. I get that. I look at it as giving back, paying it forward, whatever you want to call it. What can I say, I love my home entertainment and want the same for others. With all my ways to get things at wholesale pricing and with the ways of knowing how to essentially get it all in there, while saving money on other things and still make a chunk of change at the end, I'm all for it.

I guess what I'm looking for is guidance, advice, a foot in the door, someone to push me off the cliff and show me how it's done. I've always been more a hands on type of learner. My whole life I've been that way. Moved from p New York 10 years ago to Houston so to say I've learned from my mistakes, is an understatement. Was moving here a mistake? Absolutely not! Had I not moved I may have never gotten into loving homes and all this flipping madness. 

Enough ranting form me. I'm here to learn and do and master this real estate business as best I can. I'm not getting any younger. Ultimate goal, I'm turning 40 this year on December 21st. I want to say I'm financially secure enough to know that my next 10 years are going to build on the best ofme and have me and family secure enough for generations to come.  Someone crazy enough to help show me these ways? I hope so. If not, I'm sure I'll fall down plenty more times on my own before getting there - and I will get there. 

Thanks my story. Thanx for taking the time to hear me out. 

[Drew Shirley]

Hi Eric, welcome.

The "no money down" mantra is a bit of a misnomer because it's very difficult to invest in real estate without any money whatsoever. At the very least, you are going to need some sort of marketing budget to generate leads for buyers and sellers.

If you're going to wholesale and do double closings or assignable contracts, you at least need a good assignable contract and a list of investors to assign your deals to. That requires an attorney and marketing, or maybe a membership in the local real estate investors club. 

You can cold call FSBOs and FRBOs on Craigslist and in the magazines... that's free but time-consuming. If you're actually going to take title to your properties, you'll need to buy a sign to put in the yard, a lockbox, more contracts... etc.

I do know that the only way you'll ever make any money is make offers, the more the better. So you've got to get in touch with motivated sellers somehow and make offers. Everything else is window dressing.

Good luck.