New to Real Estate Investing

[Angela Wy]

I am new to real estate investing and based in Chicago. I am completely a beginner and have no idea where to start. Any advice as to what companies are best for newbies or who I should work with? I have looked at a lot of different programs, Renatus, Freedom Mentor, Fortune Builders, RE Mentor, the list goes on...but from looking at Bigger Pockets videos, it seems like those types of programs are not any good for beginners and I am not comfortable using those either especially since I don't have the hefty upfront cash they want. So what route is best to take for a complete newbie? Any recommendations?

[Nick Peters]

@Angela Wy

Welcome to BiggerPockets! You came to the right place to learn more about real estate and connect with other motivated investors. BP is full of great content, so I strongly recommend you to have a look at the following resources:

1. Start by reading the Ultimate Real Estate Investing Guide: https://www.biggerpockets.com/guides/ultimate-real-estate-investing-guide/introduction

2. Then check out other online guides available here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/guides

3. Have a look at BP's blog where new articles are published every day: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog

4. If you wish to network or ask specific questions about your local market, you can go to your local real estate forum and discuss with investors from your area: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/86-local-real-estate-networking

5. Or you can directly meet them by registering to real estate events around you: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521-events-and-happenings

6. BP has various tools available to help you analyze your deals (rental, flips, wholesale, etc), feel free to use them: https://www.biggerpockets.com/investment-calculators

7. Finally, if you can't find what you're looking for, try the Bigger Pockets Fileplace: https://www.biggerpockets.com/files It contains hundreds of files such as ebooks, checklists and spreadsheets for real estate investors. I've myself uploaded a rental property spreadsheet to help beginners analyze their first investment properties, it's available in my fileplace: https://www.biggerpockets.com/files/user/NickPeters

Please let me know if I can help, and best of luck!