23 Years Old and Looking to Begin Investing in Real Estate

[Josh Fenton]

Hi all, my name is Josh and I am 23 years old, looking to begin investing in real estate (if you could not tell by the title). I live in Rhode Island and that is where I am looking to invest. Regardless of how much research I do, I always feel as though I feel as though it could all go wrong or that I do not have enough money saved. I am mainly looking into something more along the lines of house hacking. Any helpful tips, money recommendations, etc. will be gladly appreciated. I am also trying to network, find deals, a mentor in the area, and just see what happens. Thanks guys!

[Anthony Thompson]

@Josh Fenton Bill and Michael's advice is good. I'd also recommend attending local RE investor groups such as RIREIG in Warwick and Black Diamond REI in southern Mass to learn some of the issues landlords deal with as well as to build up connections with contractors and other investors who may also just be starting out (or have a property or two under their belt and might be willing to help you get to that point).

House hacking is a fancy term for buying a multi-family property (usually 2-4 units), living in one of the units and renting the other ones out.

As such, it's basically just buying a small multi-family property. To do that, your two main team members will be a good mortgage broker and a good real estate agent. You can find both by asking around, such as here on BP and/or in one of the networking groups I mentioned.

Arguably, of the two the mortgage broker is more important simply because s/he can tell you what you're realistically going to be able afford. If you need to do any work on repairing or improving your credit, s/he is definitely going to be a huge help, and once you have an idea of what you can afford you'll be in a much better position when talking to a real estate agent(s).

Once you've done that you'll feel better about being on good financial footing about the purchase, and the agent will be happy you've already started the conversation with a mortgage person and are at least pre-qualified (maybe even pre-approved) to purchase a property up to X amount.

After that it just comes down to finding a good property. Again, that's a good conversation to have with a real estate agent who should be able to help you navigate questions about what kind of property and where you might want to buy.