All Forum Posts by: Alan Brymer

It sounds like you want two things from a mentor--information and motivation.

You can get information from books, courses, forums, articles, people in your local REIA, or other local investors.

About motivation, well, I might be a jerk but I honestly believe that if someone cannot make a plan and take action on their own they will never succeed anyway, so I see mentors as valuable for information purposes only.

I would just make friends with as many investors as you can in your area, read up on the subject, and take small steps to get started.

I'd like to know what the OP meant by a Mentor before I could answer that.

Do you mean someone local to follow around?

Do you mean someone to coach you on the phone?

Do you mean someone who can answer your questions as needed? Someone you can work for as a no-risk partner?

Someone successful to look up to?

There's a lot of definitions of "mentor"

I use Quickbooks Pro. Mike Butler also has a software that integrates with Quickbooks and is used by some investors with up to 2000 properties.

Use the money you have now [i]very[/] sparingly--definitely not for deals. Only use it to advertise to find sellers or invest a little in education.

But get as much free education and look for sellers using free methods as you can in the beginning, then use funds from your first wholesale deal to ramp it up.

The first thing to do is start looking for motivated sellers. Make a list of 2-3 ways you're going to start finding them, break it down into a weekly checklist, and also do the same to build a buyer's list.

If they're coming up with the money and you're not spending your own money to find the sellers, then all you have to lose is some time.

Then again, if you can find motivated sellers there are probably dozens of people around who would partner with you.

The only reason I think birddogging might be worthwhile is if they are giving you some added benefit, such as:

- Access to some special resource, like a proven script to use when knocking on doors of pre-foreclosures, or

- Mentoring or substantial training of some kind

If all anyone will do is pay you to find deals, then you might as well charge a wholesaler's fee of some kind

I've never found a do-it-yourself method as accurate as getting a realtor to pull comps.

I've only gotten an appraisal (if I'm buying it myself and not wholesaling) if the house was rural, in some city I'm not familiar with, or is somehow harder to comp than usual, and in this case it is totally worth it.

Usually. I have paid sellers tens of thousands over and above what is owed, but I try to put off paying as much of that money as possible until I have sold the house, possibly years later.