'Sneaking' my way into REI - getting into the game w/o investing

[Daniel Ryu]

Imagine this: You're over 40 years old. You're living in Korea and you decide you want to invest in US Real Estate. Only.. you don't have any experience in real estate investing, you don't have any networks, and you have no idea where to invest. In fact, you're so ‘new' to investing that you actually send over $20,000 via wire transfer to person's LLC… without a contract in place.

Sounds like the beginning of another ‘newbie real estate horror’ story, right?

As hard as it is to admit, it’s actually MY STORY. It’s how I got started in real estate investing.

At the beginning of 2014, I was newbie real estate investor with no idea what I was doing. However, by the end of 2014, I was helping to organize a Real Estate meetup in Seoul with people I had met through BiggerPockets, had connected with @Joshua Dorkin, @Brandon Turner, and numerous other BP bloggers who came on as guest of our meetup, and had made my first real estate investment in Florida, a state I had never visited with partners I had met online.

If you ask me how was able to do all that – the simple answer is hard work.

But the hard work actually started in 2013, before I was even thinking about real estate. That was the year I started to really work on developing my mindset. Growing up, I had always been a hard worker, but I also had many deep-seated fears of failure that held me back from pushing myself out of my ‘comfort zone.’ And even though I was a successful entrepreneur with two branches of an English Institute in Gangnam, I knew I was capable of more.

Overcoming my fears and pushing myself to new levels of success was not easy. It took a lot of what I call “Brain Training.”

I set about on a very systematic process ‘retrain my brain‘ – to start to associate new thought patterns that replaced old beliefs that no longer served me. Sound like science fiction?

(I assure you there was no electroshock therapy involved. ^^)

Simple practices such as visualization and meditation became a regular part of daily routines.

Anyways, overcoming my fears and embracing a new mindset was key in helping me to begin networking with others here on BiggerPockets which has lead directly or indirectly to all of my real estate successes!

While I invested in my first SFR to start with, after that, I've been able to 'remain' active in the game through other methods - by delivering value.

I've been able to create two partnerships while in Korea with people I've met through BiggerPockets. One is an joint venture on an investment property; the other is online business venture.

My journey into real estate has been unorthodox - instead of focusing on acquiring properties, given my distance and lack of funds, I've focused on connecting with the right people and seeing what type of opportunities would come of it. That means that I spend a lot of my time networking, writing up posts, planning events, and building my knowledge-base. 

I feel like I've created the right networks and systems so that the next part - the transactions - will naturally start to fall into place when I

I know a lot of newbies are wondering - How do I Get Started? 

Instead of focusing on a niche or a acquiring funds or finding deals or figuring out the right strategy, just think about how you can be of value to other real estate investors. For me it was in helping to organize people out here in Korea, helping to connect investors in Korea with people in the US, and helping investors / operators organize their business and marketing systems. 

So ...in what ways can you be of value?

Also, one other success - I got invited to do a second podcast interview for Marketing in Korea. I think they have about 10,000 listeners so I was pretty excited to be a part of it.

In the podcast, I talk about some of the networking strategies I've done to build up the meetup and connect with partners.

http://www.marketinginkorea.com/039-x/

(If you listen, let me know how I did ^^)

Thanks as always, BP Community. (And yes, that $20,000 transaction turned out fine ^^ But definitely don't ever do that!)

What ways are your getting into the game that don't involve actual transactions?