New to BiggerPockets - Excited to be here from WI

[Matt Cariello]

Hello all,

I just wanted to pop in and say that I am new here and really excited to have found BiggerPockets. What a great resource! I can already tell that I will be spending a lot of time here.

A bit about me:
I am 22, I graduate business school one month from now, and have just recently accepted a broker's role in the commercial real estate firm I currently Intern at. I am very excited about my new job as a broker, however, I eventually want to ween off of brokerage and become a full-time investor (is that what many of you here are?). I have managed my own investments (mostly stocks) for the last 5ish years or so and have done pretty good for myself, but I now want to get into real estate investing as well in order to a) round off my portfolio and b) do what I'm passionate about!

I am very dedicated, very business minded/orientated (my mind is always spinning with ideas and ways to improve), but most of all, I am a great learner... And that's exactly why I joined BP - I want to learn as much as possible from you wonderful people and I can't wait to get to know some of you guys/gals a bit better!

Thanks much,

Matt

[Joel Owens]

Hi Mathew,

I owned businesses since I was 18. I have always been an entrepreneur and it runs in my family.

When I moved into real estate about a decade ago a friend had a developer approaching them to buy their old coin laundry store they had inherited from their mother.

I went to the developer and analyzed the contract they wanted to use and found every single out in the contract. The developer said sometimes people find none of their outs and sometimes some but almost never does someone find them all like I did.

The developer calls me back a week later while we are negotiating my friends purchase and sale and asks me to come on board to help them assemble the other parcels and get them under contract. There were 20 parcels on 25 acres we were assembling for a 650,000 sq ft mixed use development with an after build value of 150 million dollars.

I spent 3 years on that project learning from a developer 40 years in the business. Sometimes I had to go back to an owner for 6 months and keep negotiating points of the contract until we were under contract. It didn't phase me and I looked at it like a challenge. After that the market started going soft around the country for land development and building was slowing down.

I switched focus to investment properties. My focus is apartment buildings and triple net leasing. While I understand the other segments I am a specialist in these. I only transact and do not do any property management. Property management is a very low income per hour activity compared to closing commercial transactions. I learned from the school of hard knocks and didn't go the big commercial company route because I am excellent at generating my own business and didn't want to give 50% of that away. I am also an investor myself which helps along with my land development skills and being a broker gives me a unique way of looking at purchasing and exit strategies for my clients.

You will do great Matthew just wake up everyday ready to learn and time is on your side at your age.