Newbie To Real Estate Investing: Looking To Connect

[Jamie Fankhauser]

Hi Everyone,

I graduated this past year from UNC-Charlotte where I played on the Women's Soccer Team and studied Business Management and Management Information Systems. I moved to Atlanta in June and I am currently apart of Chick-fil-A's LDP program. I have have been fascinated with Real Estate Investing since college, but I am now at a point in my life where I have a small (but enough) amount of capital to invest. I am very interested in the Charlotte area, but I am open to the Atlanta area since I currently reside there. I am on the hunt to expand my knowledge and skill set before I dive into my first investment. I'm leaning towards a SFH for my first purchase. If you have any tips on how to start out - I would love to hear!

[Brenden Mitchum]

Hey @Jamie Fankhauser, welcome to the BP community!

Starting out is tough but there are some key steps you can take to set yourself up for success. 

Steps 1, 2 & 3 would be education, networking and planning. They really should all be happening at once in the beginning (and forever), but education is often the very first step. Education leads to questions (networking opportunities) and allows you to begin formulating a plan to reach your goals. This planning step is important so don't skip it and just hop in. At a minimum figure out why you want to get into Real Estate and where you want it to take you. Having a bit of an "end point" will allow you to work backwards and start building a roadmap to get you there.

Perhaps you have already done this and that is what landed you on SFHs, but you'll definitely want to narrow this down a bit. Pick a city and stick with it in the beginning because starting out in one area is tough enough. I'd recommend learning the ropes a bit where you currently reside and branching out from there. Next comes networking so that you can begin to build your team. Without a good team you'll get nowhere. 

Lastly, you don't have to do everything at once so just figure out what your most important next step is and do that. This can be tricky and takes some planning but it's a good strategy to take to anything as overwhelming as Real Estate Investing. 

Hope this helps a bit. Please, feel free to reach out anytime if you have questions or just want to chat!