New Member from the Bay Area

[Tristan Cottarel]

Hi everyone,

I'm 18 years old from the Bay Area. I've always had an entrepreneurial nature, and now as I begin to see more opportunities to delve into greater business ventures, I find myself drawn to real estate.

At this point I'm just trying to educate myself as much as possible. I've got a stack of 8 or 9 books (including a BiggerPockets one by J. Scott) on my desk about flipping houses, buying and holding, multifamily properties, and wholesaling, so I'm trying to sponge up as much information as possible and see what I feel like I could best see myself doing.

Currently reading a book called The Art of Wholesaling Properties by Aram Shah and Alex Virelles. I find it's riddled with grammatical and punctuation errors, the information in the chapters is not at all logically organized, and sometimes concepts (which are not common knowledge) are just casually thrown into a paragraph without further elaboration, which is confusing and hinders my understanding. Anyone read this book and have any opinions of their own? Somehow it has 30 5-star reviews on Amazon.

So far, based on what I've read, wholesaling is the last thing I could see myself doing. I've heard that it's best to start off wholesaling because little/no $ involved, but also that it's something to save for when you're more seasoned. Thoughts?

Also, with the Bay Area's massively inflated prices, I would picture myself working not-so-locally; Cities like Modesto, Stockton and Salinas seem more accessible. Does anyone have experience living in the Bay but starting off a little further out?

Excuse the long intro, happy to have found this resource, and I look forward to see what BP has to offer! Thanks.