A little about me before anything else. I'm a Maintenance Supervisor in the property management business in California. I have some construction rehab / estimating experience along with decades of maintaining apartment complexes both in the residential end, and capital improvement planning. I am however, painfully new to the Real Estate Investment planet. If you're like me, you came here to gather information to better your life. Maybe even signed up for a Pro account to heighten your profile and get more information. Ahhh... that word: "Information". It comes at you like tsunami. Like drinking from a fire hose. You'll rummage around the forums the first few days not really knowing where "Start Here" really is. I've been in BP for 2 weeks now, and rather actively so. In the hope that you avoid some of my own missteps and frustration, please allow me a few points of well-intended advice that I wish someone gave to me.
1. Start with the Ultimate Beginners Guide. Download the PDF and don't do anything, peruse the site or get mangled in other information until you read that. In other words, don't chew something you can't yet cognitively digest. That PDF is a good primer and will give you a north star to follow. Trust me that it will clarify in one read many of the questions you will have if you DON'T read it. Especially if you are foreign to R/E investing. If you have time to watch the UBG YouTube video series that matches the guide, then all the better.
2. Don't go crazy and start making unmerited connections or following people just to "expand your network". If you don't have a clear plan of what type of investment(s) you wish to delve in, you are just adding lumber to the forest. Once you find a niche -or specialty- that appeals to your personality, risk level and financial situation, then you'll start to discern who is who and make connections appropriately.
3. Read ONE book at a time. Make notes of the important factors, and re-read those notes before jumping onto the next book. It is tempting to buy 10 books and have them ornately shelved in your home gathering dust. After you find your interest, go into a forum, ask for book recommendations on that specific discipline and go no further. The brain is not wired to remember too well. It's wired to do things, to process information and to solve. Have a notebook exclusively for this -digital or physical-, and carry it everywhere. And speaking of ...
4. Carry a notebook. Mine is divided into 4 sections at the moment. Section 1: Ultimate Beginner Guide Notes. Section 2: New Terms I'm learning (Industry lingo / vocabulary) Section 3: Mind-mapping (just a visual way to organize the information your learning. Google the word) Section 4: Thoughts: Here I mind-dump everything that comes to me daily like a journal and I review it nightly. Some of it will be crap and I cross it. Some of it will be inquiries and i will find the resources to get an answer. Write, write and write some more. The brain remembers more when you buttress it with the physical act of writing. Pen-to-paper. No digital journal.
5. Focus like you're on steroids. What do I mean? If you REALLY want to learn anything from A to Z, you have one currency: Your time. You need to chuck every thing that is unnecessarily distracting. I'm 58 years old and have 9 years to make this happen. I don't have time to waste. You need to curb your Netflix binge-watching and seriously look at where you spend your time. If time is the currency that is necessary to spend on learning, then you need lots of it. You don't need distractions. Make this quest your end zone. If you treat R/E like a hobby ... you'll get a balsa wood model airplane. If you treat it like your profession, you may actually get to fly one.
Don't get overwhelmed like i did at first. Breathe, step back from the forest, focus on one thing at time and don't move to anything else until you feel comfortable with it. Its a marathon, not a sprint.
I wish you the best success possible and am here to help in however you feel I can.
