Journal of a New Investor

[Christopher Malone]

Hello BP!

Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Christopher Malone, and I am a new investor in Chicago, IL. I have been a member of BP for a few months now, and from the time I made my first post, I have learned a lot from this site and the kind people who have taken the time to read and answer my post.

Thanks to this site and the great support, I have created a plan (road map) for the success of my investing career. I took time and created a list of goals that I will be pushing towards between Sep 5th and the end of the year. Becoming more active and giving back to the BiggerPockets forms was one of them.

So this brings me to why I am creating this thread today. In order to deliver on 2 goals with one action, I will be posting my process (on a month to month basis), leading up to and after my first deal. This way, I can give back to the forms through my success and mistakes, and hold myself accountable for my goals. I am no @Wendell, @JScott, etc, and I probably won’t be closing a deal a week, but I will do my best to provide information for all of the new investors with the steps I take in the growth of my business! :-)

So without further delay, this is my September Recap,

I got married!!! One August 31, 2014 (Not really September, but bear with me…) I married my beautiful and supportive wife Brittany. We took an amazing week honeymoon vacation to Montego Bay, Jamaica, and boy did I need it. I had the chance to finish reading the E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber and decided it was time to take action.

On the way back, I decided that the following week, September 12th (Pay day) would be the day I signed up for classes to become a licensed real estate broker. I had the money to start anytime, but I wasn’t sure if it would be the right thing to do. About 5mins later, I received an Email. It was another automated listing Email from my real estate agent, that once again, was nowhere near what I was looking for to pursue as my 1st buy and hold investment. That was it, I was done. I grabbed my iPad and looked for a Real Estate school that provided online classes, and signed up on the 5th. This began my one of my goals to pass both the national and state real estate exam 1 month from the time I signed up.

September 16th was my Birthday! I officially turned 27. It was also the same day as the Chicago Meet up. I didn’t get the chance to attend the meet up or celebrate my B-day due to my obsession of becoming licensed. I celebrated with my wife over the following weekend and I will be attending October’s meet up (Can’t wait).

After completing the 75 hours of self study, I signed up for the following September 20th and 27th 7 ½ interactive class study. I was fortunate to attend a class that contained 2 other local investors that I now communicate with often, one is an Investor that got burned in the market crash and looking to make a comeback and the other is a very energetic young lady with a lot of great ideas in her investing business. The most interesting in the class was the instructor. Not only is does he have over 40 years of experience, but he is very passionate about agents becoming and working with investors! He is also an Investor, Managing Broker, Real Estate Attorney, CPA Member of the AMP board that creates the test questions for the State test, Board member of the NAREB (National Association of Real Estate Brokers) and also an Insurance agent (Collects commission for selling homeowners insurance to himself and others). Talk about eat, sleeping and breathing Real Estate!

I managed to have a 1 on 1 conversation with him and learned a ton in the 30min conversation, we have plans to meet up again in the near future over a steak dinner (My treat), and discuss more real estate and other topics.

After the last class on the September 27th I took the school exam that following Monday and aced it! I waited a week to take the State and National exam on October 7th. I passed both! And that wraps up the 1st month of my journey!

I am currently spending this month searching for a sponsoring broker (tougher than the exam IMO) and getting my financing together. Next steps include, learning the MLS, researching my farm area, and finding a creditable local property manager to pass my rent ready products to.

Thanks for reading my incredibly long, boring, post! Stay tuned for next month’s post!

Chris