Wholesale? Bird dog? in DC Metro Area

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Hi BP!

I just joined yesterday and I've been on this site ALL day long today! I even replied to posts as soon as I woke up at 5 something this morning! Work is super slow in case you're wondering :).

So, I believe, after reading, reading, and reading... Wholesaling seems like a great option for myself and my husband to begin with. But would bird dogging be and even better beginning?? I am new at all of this and am just grasping all this terminology as well as better understanding what wholesales are all about. 

I definitely want to make a real business of investing and grow into something lasting and stable. My husband and I both have construction backgrounds and really want to flip homes as well as invest in rental property. I don't want to dive in, however, and drown! I don't have much $ to begin with... I could probably scrape up 4-5k, but is that a reasonable start for wholesaling? Or should I bird dog (which I'd need direction on this as well...), and learn a little while saving my earnings from it?

Please let me know what you all think. I've made mistakes before where I've gotten overly excited and wound up completely overwhelmed. I don't want to make that mistake with this, as I have a real desire to do well and prosper in real estate investing.

Thanks!

[Christina R.]

D'Aydra,

Actually I think wholesales are a great way to get a good foundation in REI because you have to learn how to evaluate deals and estimate costs - and those 2 aspects stretch over multiple facets of REI. The way I went about it is I went to many meetups and REIAs, did a ton of reading here on BP, bought some books (check out the 2 by J Scott that are offered here on BP/Amazon) and listened to how successful wholesalers go about it in this area (@Terry Royce is a prime example). All the while - because that took me several months because that's the speed I felt comfortable progressing at - I was saving some $ to start a direct mail campaign (@Jerry Puckett). Then when I was ready to try, I took the $ and the knowledge and started. What was great was I had established a support system in the months leading up so I could ask for advice and I had people ready to buy my deals and luckily I got two. I also took people out and paid for dinner or lunch while they let me ask a million questions. That's what worked for me because I had an idea of how I wanted it to progress (wholeselling to using that $ to buy rentals). It didn't quite work out in that order but the former has helped with the latter and now doing my first rental - which is requiring a fair amount of work to get rent-ready - I am learning so much that helps me evaluate deals, so I can wholesale better (and rehab better).

There are so many different ways to make money in REI and this site can be overwhelming at times but you can learn so much by punching a few keywords in the search engine and just reading.

Good luck!