All Forum Posts by: Mark Ferguson

Hey @Trevor Mleziva , congrats on having the mindset you have at such a young age. I too was in your shoes ready to learn anything and everything when I first discovered biggerpockets. I would recommend listening to every BP podcast available. From there, you will hear a lot of the same books repeated along with guest that also have podcasts, books and blogs to learn from. Go with what speaks to you, but I would personally recommend Rich Dad Poor Dad, Millionaire Real Estate Investor, Go Giver and Atomic Habits as a place to start down your personal development journey. You'll hear it repeated over and over again, but you're the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with so while I may not have access to investors and great thinkers I want to emulate, I do have access to free audiobooks from my public library and investors I admire to follow on social media which are the next best thing. If you have instagram, I would also recommend following @Mark Ferguson @ryan dossey and investorgirlbritt as they put out a ton of quality content to learn from.

@Guevara M. I got a ton of value out of a book called "How to Make it Big as a Real Estate Agent" by fellow BP member @Mark Ferguson. I think I paid the $13 for the hard copy when I started out a few years ago, and it literally is the blue print that helped me start making 6 figures as an agent. Being an agent is not really a job, as there is a lot of marketing and business that goes into it. It is all about identifying the small, actionable steps you can take to produce results long term. 

@Mark Ferguson, great idea!  ...enjoyed reading your book last year and just saw it on my youngest son's (@Jake Froehlich) night stand yesterday! (already a 2nd generation book...)  Please let us know when that article is written!  ...my oldest son has a whole life policy that he just took withdrew $$$ out on, but trying to read through the paperwork and decipher before/after consequence was a nightmare.  Although some people think it's creepy/morbid to get life insurance for your kids at young age...I'm now seeing the benefit of passing on such a gift...though arguably, that same money could have been invested into a rental upon his birth as @Brandon Turner has written and talked about a lot...still...for those people who can't qualify for rental home loans when their kids are young...investing into certain whole life policies beats a savings account in my opinion.  Hopefully your article can help us figure out whether to abandon all banks for personal banking! (though Life Insurance for banking seems counter-intuitive).  

NUMBERS: For what it's worth, our oldest son's policy (age 8-28 so far) is l think: Death Benefit - $80K; time paid in over 20 years=~$20K and he was able to withdraw ~$8K (tax free) recently (not a loan) and the Death Benefit is still ~$80K and premiums just under $100/month for life.  I don't remember the details for loans, etc.  Technically, if he lives to be 78, then $80K will have been invested, but if he's able to take out another $24K (tax free) between now and age 78 (not to mention loans against it while benefit/interest accrual stays same)...then it still beats any Savings Plan I know of...and his family gets $80K when he dies...I suppose diminishing returns would start at age 100...sure the evil BIG INSURANCE company got a lot more out of our money...but so do those evil BIG BANKS...

Policy was taken more as gift for later in his life since investing in Whole Life (as stated above) goes against everything A.L. Williams taught me...

@Natalia Tucker if your interested in rentals, I would start with @Brandon Turner's book on rental property investing. He also has a great book that he wrote with his wife on managing rentals. I've read both and they are great resources. A non-BP rental book I would recommend is @Mark Ferguson's build a rental property empire. All have some overlap but most of it is great info.

@Jose Vazquez don't spend a bunch of money on all the various things you can spend money on as a realtor! I wasted a lot of money on different online lead generation tools, etc. Spend you time marketing to your sphere, talking to people, going to networking group, and just generally providing value to those around you. There is an allure to the training programs that are out there, but the reality is that this business takes time to get started. 

I would also read @Mark Fergusons book "How to Make it Big as a Real Estate Agent'. That little books has helped me grow my business into a six figure business in three years.