How I finally found a mentor!

[Alejandro Saenz]

After 5 months of trial and error I've found an amazing mentor that I've been meeting with every weekend for the past 2 months. I just wanted to share the story because I had to reach out to several investors until I finally found someone that was willing to work with me.

These are places where I tried to find someone:

--My local REIA but didn't have much luck there.

--Googling "we buy houses" and contacting those investors through their online form.  

--Lastly I pulled a list from our assessors page and imported into excel. Found people with 10 or more properties here in my area. For those where an LLC owned the property I found their companies online and emailed them.

Finally the investor I'm working with now replied and he agreed to go out and have coffee. 

One of the most important things I learned is, present yourself as someone who can bring some value to the table. Don't talk about the thing that you want to learn, instead tell them how you can save them time, or make their life a little bit easier. Whether it is posting rental ads in the internet, interviewing potential renters, or even hanging mini blinds. I'm a professional web developer, and I bring value by helping them with their web presence.

Be persistent, you never know if the next email is the one that someone will reply too. 

[Alejandro Saenz]

Thanks for the kind words @Jonathan Makovsky and @Marni DRew!

@Michael Westberry  hopefully you can make it work. Just keep trying and you will find someone that will help you.

@Jordan Archer the most valuable thing has been hanging out with him on Saturdays. I go out to meet potential buyers as well as meeting with the ocassional wholesalers. We drive around town looking at potential houses. It has been very useful to get a feel for what it's like to be out in the field meeting with people and looking at houses. He shows me what he looks for in investment properties as we walk trough the houses.