Newbie from San Jose, CA

[Suzanna Lam]

Hi all,

My name is Suzanna Lam. I'm a new real estate investor here. My goal is to make an offer in the next 6 months. Why that long? In part because I'm still in the middle of setting up legal entity, opening bank account, building my power team etc... the admin stuff. I am very excited about this and looking forward to learning from all of you.

Regards

[Jon Holdman]

If you want to make an offer, you need to focus on that. Setting up entities, opening bank accounts and building a "power team" are distractions, not essentials. The key thing is to 1) find a good area to invest, 2) look at some properties, 3) make some offers.

I doubt San Jose is a good place to invest.

First, though, what do you want to do? When you say "invest", I take that to mean buy and hold rental property, whether single family, commercial, apartments, whatever. But people often mean other real estate related jobs when they say "invest".

If you do mean SFR rentals, then you need to focus on finding a good place to invest where you can buy at a price that is supported by the rents. Read in the Rental Property forum about the 50% rule and buy properties that work with this rule. Then, you'll need a source of properties. If you just buy retail properties off the MLS, any agent, or even just the listing agent, will do. But, unlikely you'll find good deals. You might have to advertise to find good deals, or get to know people in the target community who can help with good deals.

Anyway, focus on the deals, and not on this fluff. Not that its unimportant, but the deals are the most important thing.