Looking to restart my real estate investing career, after hitting some pitfalls!

[Chad Clinton]

Good Day Biggerpocket Family, I'm relatively new and was looking to start 2015 out with a bang. I've been out of real estate actively for about 5 years, but very eager to get back. My last endeavor as an investor ended with me getting burned in a major condo deal in Washington, DC. To fund the deal, I used a hard money lender and 2 of my rental properties as collateral assignment to secure the funding. It worked well on my first project, but the cost of the money was too expensive and I didn't really make a profit (rookie mistake on my part for being too eager and accepting what I could get in order to do the deal.) On my second project using the same formula, the results were even worse. My contractor got into an argument with the neighborhood ANC, who pushed to get a stop work order on my project. Long story short, I got behind on the schedule, which really hurt me since I was making "large" interest only payments.

I was forced to file for a bankruptcy to protect my assets as the hard money lenders came after me. Needless to say, this experience soured me on participating in real estate investing, but I've never lost the love for the business of real estate.

After years of maturing and learning on the sidelines, I'm really ready to get back! As a father raising a young son, I want to be able to provide the financial security that my family needs and I know that real estate is a great avenue for that.

I'd love to hear from all the savvy investors in this forum for suggestions on the best ways to restart my investing career!

[Kirk Gore]

@Chad Clinton , sorry to hear about your struggles so far. 

Here's my advice:

1) Decide what kind of real estate investing you want to participate in. There are so many ways to make money in real estate and each of them have countless niches that you can specialize in. I really think that truly achieving long term success begins and ends with finding what you enjoy doing and getting great at it.

2) Find a mentor or someone you trust that is either smarter than you or knows more about the niche that you are interested in and do whatever you can to learn from them.

3) Never stop learning. There is so much content on the forums that you could spend months reading and not scratch the surface. Pick up a few of the business/real estate books recommended on the podcasts and also listen to the podcasts themselves. Having access to the successes and failures of 100+ successful real estate investors is an invaluable resource and the podcasts really have some fantastic content on them.

I hope this helped a little! Good luck.