Greeting BP Family,
This is my very first post. I'd like to introduce myself, and tell you all about a decision/commitment I just made.My name is Jonathan Castaneda, and I live in the Bay Area. I've been in the background here on BP for about a year. I've wanted to invest in real estate since I was 18; I'm now 36. I've been watching the podcasts daily, educating myself, and trying to make a decision as to what angle I want to take. Multi-family/large apartment buildings have always been my end goal. I signed up for a 10 month mentorship program with R.E. Mentor (David Lindahl's company). Here's where it gets ironic. BP is constantly speaking against paying the gurus, and paying for this type of information, and I had completely agreed with that, and generally speaking I still do. What makes it ironic is that I signed up because of BP LOL! It's because I had been faithfully listening and learning from the podcasts; that I could follow everything that was being said in the initial orientation that I went to. Prior to listening to BP, it was like if I had a problem with my car, took it to the mechanic, and he told me that it was $2000 for parts and labor to replace my transmission. If I knew nothing about cars, I would probably assume that this guy was trying to rip me off. In contrast, if I knew about cars, I would understand that that's a standard price for the job (give or take). I bought into the mentorship program (40k), and this is day 3. It is very structured and demanding in taking actionable steps to build your business. I have thus far researched the market I want to invest in, and made a connection with a commercial broker. The next step is to start finding private money investors, and building an investor list. The program says we should be analyzing deals all of the time. That resonates because Brandon Turner says that all of the time. When learning the ins and outs of multi-family investing, I realized that there ain't no way in hell I'm about to embark upon this strictly from reading books and podcasts! BP encouraged me in another way to make this commitment. The number of people I listened to on the podcast who started in multi-family investing. The stories were very inspiring, and told me that it is possible. I also listen to how people talk about the difficulty in scaling when investing primarily is single families. I never wanted to invest in single families. I always thought of 4-plexes. The boot camp I attended this past weekend did a overhaul on my mindset. Trust me when I tell you, putting 40k out there was scary. I had took out a personal cash loan from a company called Sofi. I have excellent credit, but was still surprised when I got approved for 135k cash (85k thru Sofi, and 50k thru Citizens Bank) that was deposited in my account. I borrowed the money to participate in a couple on online tax default auctions for a couple of counties here in the Bay Area. Well, in the Bay Area, 135k cash is nothing! I knew that already, but was hoping for a miracle. I was going to just pay the money back, and decided to use 40k of it to pay for the mentorship program. I'm going all out on this, and I wanted the BP community to join me on my journey. I will be posting my progress as I go. If this is a failure, you will know about it. If it's a success, you will know about it. I think about life in terms of lying on my death bed, and asking myself this question "will I regret it?". The answer for me is an overwhelming no. If this doesn't work, when I'm lying on my death bed, I'll laugh at this 40k. But, if I don't get off my butt and take action, on my death bed I'll be full of regrets. The numbers that they target for their deals are very conservative, which I believe it's safe to assume, that is will make deals harder to find. The structure is 8% cash on cash, and 16-20% annualized returns for our investors. I will also be presenting deals here on BP for those of you who would like to invest passively in multi-family. My mentor has over 400 units in his portfolio, and my sponsor has over 1000. I paid for their experience, guidance, and access to their credentials/reputation. They will be overseeing everything that I do, and all moves that are made will have 3 sets of eyes on them. I appreciate this opportunity, and I would love feedback from the BP community now, and along the way. I hope to hear from you.
Possessed by Promise,
Jonathan A. Castaneda
