No. 1 Way to Start in Real Estate With No Money, Experience, or Network

In the video below, I ask investor Thach Nguyen how a newbie can start investing in real estate with little money, little experience, and no network.

Here’s the advice he would give to a newbie.

How to Get Started in REI With Little Money or Experience

Thach is a top investor. In this video, we’re standing in front of his latest investment—a $1.5 million project consisting of three new builds. But I wanted to know what he would suggest to someone on the opposite end of the investing spectrum.

I asked him: “If you’re brand new and just starting out, you don’t have that kind of capital lying around—or relationships even—to be able to buy this type of project, what advice can you give to newer investors? What would you recommend in order to generate capital or to be able to find money to buy deals?”

Here’s what he said.

If you’re brand new in the game—you haven’t done a flip, you don’t have any capital, you have no relationships—I would say go master being a wholesaler. But not just any wholesaler—learn how to master finding the right deal, how to identify what a good deal is to the investor or to a builder, and then you’ll find those good deals. And then wholesale, and stack your money.

And when you stack your money, you do enough of it, and you get that experience, then I think the next hurdle is start fixing and flipping or fixing and holding single family. So, you’ll get more experience, create more relationships.

Because, you know, getting a team to build something this big (like my latest investment), you need a lot of people. Once you get that, then you work your way up. To go from not doing anything straight to here may be a little tough. But if you do it right, you can get here in probably a year.

I think this is accurate. It’s all about doing it right.

About a year would mean saving your money, building a relationships, having the right people, hanging out with the right people. Who you hang around is so important. It’s not just for the effect mentally, but who you’re hanging around could also mean people who have money you can borrow and who you can do deals with.

And so, for those of you guys starting out, remember that message: It’s easy to start as a wholesaler. You learn so much as a wholesaler, because you’ve got to learn how to comp those properties, learn what ARV is, learn the construction side. And you’ve got to meet the other investors who are going to buy those projects from you.

Then, the key is: how do you get out of that as fast as possible?

Thach chimes in:

And that’s the key. Don’t make that the end game. Make this (investing in the $1.5M project) the end game. Make your lifestyle the end game.

And another key: save your money. I know so many house flippers that make a ton of money, and they’re broke because they spend as much as they make. Thach says it’s the same with builders. Money now often leads to instant gratification.

People, they don’t want to delay instant gratification. That’s the hardest thing—playing the long game.

So, I guess that would be a third point is play the long game in this. Think 10 or 15 years out; start thinking that way as soon as possible. Your future self will thank you. That person’s going to want some extra cash.

Thach adds:

And if you’re young, get inspired and follow this message, folks. Because you’re going to blink and 20 years are going to go by.

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