Where should I start, software, mentorship, or both?

Question

I'm trying to get started in Real Estate Investing doing everything from Wholesale, Foreclosures, Commercial, Rehab, etc. I know wholesale will be a start but I don't want to just leave money on the table not striving for the bigger deals as well. I figured I can use some guidance from a mentor to help me in all of this so I don't make any mistakes. I have not started investing yet and have just been educating myself. I just came from a Rich Dad seminar this weekend and could not afford the advanced training. So I now I am trying to find other sources that are similar or the same as his program that can help guide me. The software at Rich Dad's seminar had amazing features that I feel would make my life easier as a REI. It included google earth, ability to find a lenders list, ability to create a quick buyers & sellers list, website creation, Squeeze page creation, automation when someone puts in info email is sent to them. finding current foreclosures,etc, Ability to give accurate information on Value of property, what sold,is selling,etc.

What do you recommend for websites to use for these things?

Frank Gallinelli · Answer

@Brittney Taylor Forgive me for piling on, but @Kyle J. and @Joshua Dorkin have given you excellent -- and critically important -- advice. Start by learning all you can about one area of real estate investing. Do that by seeking out the advice of people here on BP and taking advantage of the resources on the site. There is a huge number of extraordinarily generous people here who have experience and who are happy to share their knowledge. Investors helping investors, no hidden agendas.

Josh is right: Put a padlock on your wallet while you're getting up to speed. Instead of spending all your cash on "gurus," get your education here and put that money toward your first deal instead.

James Vermillion · Answer

We are lucky enough to live in a world where information is accessible and cheap.  When I was starting my business I took full advantage of that, saving myself thousands of dollars that I otherwise would have paid for someone to tell me.  How?  Easy!  I spent  a lot of time on BP reading about the exact areas of real estate I wanted to get involved in.  I read about the mistakes people made and tried to avoid them.  I read about the successes people had and tried to copy them.  I saw lessons others had learned and made note of them.  I also utilized other free resources such as the local library, blogs, and free online classes.

If you are willing to spend time seeking out information, organizing it and using it to develop your own plan you can be successful and save yourself a lot of money which you can put to use.  If you are able to find a mentor who is willing to help you get started great, but it is not a prerequisite to being successful in this business.

As for the software, you do not need to pay for all that fancy stuff!  Most of that stuff is available for free online already (or something similar), you just need to find it.

JD Castillo · Answer

i had an old man who spent a lifetime investing give me a piece of advice,

“If you want to be an investor you are going to need three things; Time, Money and Experience.  If you don’t have one or two of those things then you need to partner with someone who does.”

Be careful paying too much for training.  there are plenty of ways to get training for free.  every seminar that you buy will only lead you to another training and another training and another....

go to meetup.com and find meetups that you can go to for little to no money and network and learn as much as possible.   figure out what part of investing you want to do i.e. wholesaling, renting, flipping loans etc...then focus on it and learn all you can.

set a deadline for your first deal and stick to it.   be ready to make a quick decision.  analysis paralysis plagues so many new investors.

good luck to you!!

Joshua Dorkin · Answer

I'm with Kyle on this.  Start with a single focus and become an expert at that before trying to understand everything.

I also think you should hold on to your wallet and get the basics down before you try and spend money on all sorts of bells and whistles...

Kyle J. · Answer

Welcome to BP Brittney.  You can find information/discussions about everything you mentioned right here.  There's plenty of members here with experiences in such a wide variety of areas, including the ones you're interested in.

If I could make one suggestion, since you're just starting out, you might want to focus on learning as much as you can about one particular area of REI before you try to learn about all of them.  That way you could at least start doing that one thing and making some money, and not have to wait until you learned every aspect of REI before you take action.

Be the master of one trade, rather than a jack of all of them.  :)

Where should I start, software, mentorship, or both?

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