Skip to content
Home Blog Real Estate Investing For Beginners

Newbie Real Estate Investors: The Path to Success Starts HERE

Marcus Maloney
3 min read
Newbie Real Estate Investors: The Path to Success Starts HERE

In your trek to become a profitable Real Estate Investor, you will face many ups and downs.

A newbie must have a strong sense of purpose and perseverance in their DNA. These qualities will ensure that one does not get too high with success and does not get too low with failures. In a recent article I received a lot of feedback on where I believe all newbies should begin. This article Warning: Newbies Stop Wholesaling Now!!! triggered a response from numerous investors that started with wholesaling as their primary focus. The feedback was great. Today’s article will provide some clarity; why I believe bird-dogging is essential in building a strong foundation for your investment career.

Foundation is defined as the basis or groundwork of anything.

This word outlines the beginning of a thing as well as the strength of a thing. Since we are speaking relative to real estate, it is understood that the foundation of a building is directly correlated to the strength of the building. If the foundation is weak, then the structure is weak. This is so elementary that even one third of pigs know this to be true (you know the 3 little pigs, one house was built of brick). I want to take you on a quick journey of how to build a strong foundation as an investor bricks by brick.  NEWBIE: The Path to Success STARTS HERE  

Brick 1: Education

Education is a strong building block of success in any industry, many people spend thousands of dollars gaining an education to validate their expertise in a certain area. Some take the traditional route college, others gain their expertise via trade schools, and finally the best teacher of  all life.

Most investors have heard of analysis paralysis, simply put this is when someone takes too long to make a decision. I consider the most vital educational components for a newbie investor are : marketing strategy, target market(s), knowing comparable, estimating rehab cost, and having a bon-a-fide exit strategy. Although this may seem elementary, many newbies can not master these components. Time will not permit me to go in depth in each but bird dogging will provide you with a firm understanding on how to master each area.

Education is power… but without implementation, its just potential. (yeah you can Tweet that!)

Brick 2: Collaboration

Using the power of other people’s resources can take you to another level in your investing journey sooner that you may believe. Getting to know who the real players are in your investing community and generating a strategic alliance with them will help you get things done. In my previous article I spoke on how bringing deals to investors will help with your credibility, this is possible because investors understand how critical it is to have a steady deal flow. If you are able to consistently put deals in front of them they will know you have the understanding of how to evaluate a deal. This will help you build your portfolio of investors you can sell properties to when you are ready to begin wholesaling, or you may begin doing co-wholesaling or joint ventures together.

The power of other peoples resources is a great way to gain momentum.

Brick 3: Experience

During my high school days teachers loved commenting on my report card. The comment they always used was “he has a lot of potential” yes I did, but I still had a D average.

Potential means absolutely nothing if you do not activate it.

This brings me to the next brick “experience”. As a bird dog you will be able to gain a wealth of experience.  The experience you will receive is worth much more than education or collaboration alone. By learning from a seasoned investors you will be able to find out information you can not learn from a seminar alone.  Its not easy gaining the experience you need. Having a strong purpose and perseverance as stated prior will help during the times of failure. Many newbies start and give up because its not as easy as many say, and it shouldn’t be.  Investors will not be very forthcoming in the beginning, but after time and service you will be able to line your questions up and get them answered.

The experience is the on the job training. If you are like me you learn a lot more being hands on versus learning from a lecture or from a text book. Building alliances with professionals will gain you the job training you need. Many people say “well look at how much money you are loosing”, your response should be “look at how much I am learning while making money”.

A great example is negotiating, how much can you learn from reading a book on negotiating? Yes, you can learn something, but when you see it in action its completely different.  You evaluate the sender’s message, and how its received, and how the receiver responds. Negotiating is an art within itself and if you are able to learn under a master negotiator you have one leg up on the competition.

Related: How to Negotiate: 7 Real Estate Negotiation Tips

Finally, you have to use what you have to get where (not what) you want. Again, this is not about quick money its about sustainability, and having a strong foundation. If this is the approach you need to take to build a solid foundation brick by brick don’t let anyone discourage you.

If you have any other strong foundation bricks, or something I may have missed please share.

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.