New to rental property investing

[Lawrence Bass]

Greetings everyone,

I’ve finally decided that I want to start investing into rental properties to help gain financial freedom. I currently live in Oklahoma City and I work in Norman. As of right now I am deployed but I should be coming home in about 2-4 months. While being gone I have had the opportunity to read a few books and i want to take the next step.

I’m here for advice. What books do you all recommend that are must reads? What should I do before even thinking about trying to get a rental property? I need some guidance...

I am looking in the Lawton, OK and OKC metro areas. Feel free to reach out to me. I look forward to meeting you all when I get back. Thank you in advance.

[Daniel A.]

Hello Lawrence,

Great choice to get into real estate investing. The best thing about investing today is that there is so much information available, absolutely free of charge. As you probably know, BiggerPockets is a great place to seek out information on anything you could possibly want to know.

As to books, go to Amazon, type in real estate, filter the search so you see the top customer reviews, and have at it. Really, you can't go wrong so long as you are continuing your education.

Me personally, I have found great information in the following books:

     The Book on Rental Property Investing, by Brandon Turner

    Buy It, Rent It, Profit! , by Bryan M. Chavis

Those are just two. The latter is informative in the sense of an instruction guide. Lot's of useful information. The former is a book published here on BiggerPockets, and if you check out the bookstore here, you'll find it along with a lot of other valuable reads.

What I recommend is that you take the time to make sure you understand what it takes to be a landlord, even if you plan on hiring a property management company. Figure out what makes a solid lease. Learn how to screen tenants.

You'll also want to learn the basics of finding deals. The last thing you want while hunting for financial freedom is to become incarcerated in a financial prison. You avoid this by running the numbers and learning how a lease covers your a**. 

Better yet, figure out what you want to do with your real estate investing. What path do you want to take? What are your goals? Do you want to manage your properties, or do you want to rehab them? Or both? There are so many different ways to go about real estate. Educate yourself about what each facet entails, figure out which one you like the best, then narrow your focus and educate yourself and become a master.

If you have a passion for this, let that passion guide you down the path of education. Learn from others' mistakes. Don't get disheartened when you hear "no." Gain perspective, gain prosperity.