{"id":130181,"date":"2020-10-01T05:00:41","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/?p=130181"},"modified":"2023-06-21T08:26:33","modified_gmt":"2023-06-21T14:26:33","slug":"real-estate-beginners-pro-tips-start-investing-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/real-estate-beginners-pro-tips-start-investing-now","title":{"rendered":"7 Essential Real Estate Investing Tips From a Successful Investor"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm?e=BIGPOC3334983301&amp;light=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"200\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">How would you like to be fabulously wealthy and spend your days on a yacht drinking Champagne from a diamond-encrusted goblet? One tip: marry a Kardashian. But if you just want a better life and more freedom to spend time doing things you want to do with people you love, I\u2019ve got another tip: Invest in real estate.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I&#8217;ve been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/real-estate-investing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">investing in real estate<\/a>, both flipping and rentals, for almost 15 years now. And I want to teach you the basics of building wealth and passive income through real estate.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Here&#8217;s the idea. This video is really designed to teach you the fundamentals, the basics, and really everything you need to know to get started on your own real estate investing journey. Even if you&#8217;re starting with no experience or no cash or no credit or even if you aren&#8217;t a Kardashian.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em>Looking for a real estate agent? Check out <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/agent\/match\" target=\"_blank\"><em>BiggerPockets&#8217;s agent match<\/em><\/a><em>!<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Let&#8217;s get to it.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P925HsVKUN0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 class=\"p2 wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"s1\">7 Key Lessons for Real Estate Investing<\/span><\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"p3 wp-block-heading\">1. Pick a Strategy and Stick to It<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This first lesson covers the basics because there are a lot of different ways to invest in real estate.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That&#8217;s one of the reasons I love real estate investing so much. It&#8217;s like that weird box of chocolates they sell around Valentine&#8217;s Day\u2014there&#8217;s really something for everyone. (P.S. Whoever puts those weird cherry nut things in there, that&#8217;s disgusting. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">But I love the caramel ones.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">For example, there&#8217;s house flipping. You&#8217;ve seen the TV shows. You buy something cheap and nasty. You fix it up really nice and pretty, and then you sell it fast for a lot of money. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">At least, that&#8217;s how it&#8217;s supposed to work anyway. And many times it does. I&#8217;m not a big house flipper, but I&#8217;ve done a few of them so far this year and made almost a quarter-million dollars in total profit on those. It&#8217;s not a bad way to make some money. And there are ways to do this for little to no money down, which I&#8217;ll cover in another lesson. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">However, the downside of flipping\u2014besides having to manage contractors, stay on budget, stay on time\u2014is that when the flip is over and you get the money, it&#8217;s done. You pay the taxes\u2014and it&#8217;s a lot of taxes\u2014and that&#8217;s it. There&#8217;s no more money coming in. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That leads us to the most popular way to invest in real estate versus flipping: rental properties.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Rental properties are like the little oil wells you see on the side of the road in Texas. When you buy them correctly, they just pump money out of the ground every single month. It gets deposited into your bank account over time. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">When you collect enough of those little oil wells, you have enough to quit your job and travel the world and pretty much do whatever you want and drink Champagne out of the diamond-encrusted goblet. It\u2019s really awesome, but it does come with some management headaches, which thankfully you can hire professional property managers to deal with 99% of. Of course, you still have to deal with the property manager, but they take the bulk of the work.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And then there are other strategies like real estate wholesaling and BRRRR investing and syndications and house hacking. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">There&#8217;s really a lot of stuff out there you can do. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Like house hacking, for example, where you buy a duplex or triplex, live in one unit, and rent the other ones out. I love that.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The point being, though, there are a ton of ways to invest in real estate. To make it more simple, I want to recommend this: Don&#8217;t get overwhelmed. Just pick one. Just pick a property type and a strategy and go all-in on it.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">If you&#8217;re going to go buy single-family houses and flip them, great\u2014go do that! Or if you just want to buy a duplex and rent out one of the units and live in the other, great. Do it. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You don&#8217;t need to learn everything at the beginning. Just pick one property type, one strategy, stick with it for a while. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">You&#8217;ll be in the game in no time.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"p3 wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"s1\">2. Educate Yourself on How Real Estate Makes Money<\/span><\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In a nutshell, you get rich through real estate in four primary ways. I call them the four wealth generators of real estate in my book <a href=\"https:\/\/store.biggerpockets.com\/collections\/all-books\/products\/rental-property-investing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Book on Rental Property Investing<\/em><\/a>. And here&#8217;s how they go.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">1. Cash Flow<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">First, there is cash flow. Cash flow is like extra money every month and every year that just comes in. You can spend it on vacations, on paying your bills, on drinking Champagne from your goblet, whatever.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It&#8217;s profit that you get from your rental properties. It&#8217;s the profit you make. But\u00a0that&#8217;s not the only benefit of owning rentals or other types of real estate. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><strong>2. Appreciation<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">There&#8217;s the appreciation. No, not that we appreciate it, though we do appreciate real estate. I&#8217;m talking about appreciation as in the natural rise of property values over time. Now, of course, the real estate market does go up and down, but on average, over time, property values increase. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In a simple graph showing the median price for American houses over the past 40 years, it generally goes <\/span><span class=\"s1\">up and to the right. A little up and down, but generally up and to the right. So, as I say, don&#8217;t wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><strong>3. Loan Paydown<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In other words, if you get a loan on a property, which we&#8217;ll talk about more later, that loan gets paid down each and every month. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And here&#8217;s why this is cool. Imagine you bought a property and you got a mortgage on it, like most people do. Now, let&#8217;s say maybe you paid $300,000 for the property.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Let&#8217;s just pretend you didn&#8217;t get a good deal at all and so you&#8217;ve got no cash flow. You broke even every single month for 30 years. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">You just kept breaking even after paying all of those bills, like the mortgage payment, the taxes, insurance, repairs, and all that. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Imagine also that you bought in a weird area that never went up in value, ever, like no appreciation. So, the first two wealth generators, they don&#8217;t even count. You bought it for $300,000 and 30 years from now, it&#8217;s still only worth $300,000. Now, that sounds like a bad deal, right?<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Well, maybe not, because what did happen? Your loan over time got paid off completely. N<\/span><span class=\"s1\">ow after 30 years, you owe nothing on a property worth $300,000. T<\/span><span class=\"s1\">hat doesn&#8217;t sound too bad to me.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In fact, I bought one property for my daughter Rosie the week she was born. I put it on an 18-year mortgage so that when she goes to college, it&#8217;s going to be paid off entirely, but it should be worth about a third of a million dollars at that point.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Now, Rosie can use that money to fund her college education or start her own real estate empire or whatever she wants to do with it. And the best part is the tenants are paying that property off over time.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That&#8217;s pretty awesome, right? It&#8217;s like automatic wealth creation. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">4. Tax Benefits<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Now, don&#8217;t fall asleep yet. Basically, the government likes taxes. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">But the government also likes real estate investors because we provide housing for everyone. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">They offer some really amazing tax benefits to let you grow wealth faster and keep more of what you earn. Those are the four wealth generators of real estate and they work together to make you wealthy.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><strong><em>Related:<\/em><\/strong> <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/real-estate-taxes-deductions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Ultimate Guide to Real Estate Taxes &amp; Deductions<\/a><\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\r\n\r\n\n    \n  <div id=\"visibility-group-block_91f699539f2e883b40468db27d680ba0\" class=\"visibility-group alignwide  hidden\">\n        \n\n<div id=\"hero-block_bb9b23ad11c90b81689318ef74219b64\" class=\"first:mt-0 hero-block py-4  alignwide   has-background has-slate-200-background-color has-text-color has-theme-gold-color\">\n    <div\n        class=\"gap-10 lg:gap-20 flex flex-wrap lg:flex-nowrap max-w-screen-xl mx-auto px-4 relative lg:items-center \">\n\n        <div class=\"relative z-30 lg:w-1\/2 \">\n            <main class=\"py-4\">\n                \n\n<p class=\"has-slate-800-color has-text-color has-large-font-size\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:800\">Find the Right Agent, Close the Best Deal<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"my-3 md:my-5 lg:my-8 has-slate-900-color has-text-color\" style=\"font-size:18px\">Step #1: Use Agent Finder to match with top <em><strong>investor-friendly<\/strong><\/em> real estate agents to help you find, analyze, and close your next deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=button-custom-event-block_b615208d2ea4b280fabb5af1ecec6c2f class='button-custom-event'>\n      <a\n    href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/agent\/match\"\n        x-on:click=\"window.analytics.track('Blog Block | B2C Marketplace Agent Finder', {\n      referrer: 'https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/real-estate-beginners-pro-tips-start-investing-now',\n    });\"\n    class=\" btn-shape inline-block no-underline has-background has-theme-blue-background-color has-text-color has-white-color\" target=\"_blank\">Find an Agent<\/a>\n  <\/div>\n\n            <\/main>\n        <\/div>\n\n                <div class=\"lg:w-1\/2 first:mt-0 relative h-full lg:flex lg:items-center\">\n            <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"object-cover w-full relative z-20 my-0  rounded-md hidden lg:block\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Marketplace-Blog-Blocks-Agent-v3.png\" alt=\"investor friendly real estate agent\" title=\"\">\n        <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n  <\/div>\n  \n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n    \n  <div id=\"visibility-group-block_64dd31c79f00f\" class=\"visibility-group  \">\n        \n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"hero-block_64dd2875dba9d\" class=\"first:mt-0 hero-block py-4    has-background has-slate-100-background-color has-text-color has-theme-slate-color\">\n    <div\n        class=\" flex flex-wrap lg:flex-nowrap max-w-screen-xl mx-auto px-4 relative lg:items-center \">\n\n        <div class=\"relative z-30 w-full \">\n            <main class=\"py-4\">\n                \n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading my-0 tracking-tight font-extrabold has-theme-slate-dark-color has-text-color has-large-font-size\">Join the community<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"my-3 md:my-5 lg:my-8 has-theme-slate-color has-text-color\" style=\"font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400\">Ready to succeed in real estate investing? Create a free BiggerPockets account to learn about investment strategies; ask questions and get answers from our community of +2 million members; connect with investor-friendly agents; and so much more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=button-custom-event-block_64dd2888dba9e class='button-custom-event'>\n      <a\n    href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/signup\"\n        x-on:click=\"window.analytics.track('Blog Block | Acquisition | Free Membership Signup', {\n      referrer: 'https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/real-estate-beginners-pro-tips-start-investing-now',\n    });\"\n    class=\" btn-shape inline-block no-underline has-background has-theme-blue-background-color has-text-color has-white-color\" target=\"_blank\">Sign Up<\/a>\n  <\/div>\n\n            <\/main>\n        <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div>\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\r\n\r\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"p1 wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"s1\">3. Market Cycles<\/span><\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Real estate prices move up and down all the time. You probably remember 2008 when the real estate market crashed, which means prices dropped significantly. But then, over the next decade, prices have steadily climbed. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And eventually, they&#8217;ll drop again\u2014maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, maybe in another decade. W<\/span><span class=\"s1\">e don&#8217;t really know. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">But understanding how market cycles work, it&#8217;s important.\u00a0 <\/span><span class=\"s1\">The cool thing about investing in real estate is that no matter what part of the cycle we find ourselves investing in, we can still invest and we can still be profitable.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Yes, in a perfect world, we would love to buy a bunch of deals when the market is at the very bottom and then sell them all when the market is at the very peak. That would be awesome, right? And we could just do that over and over and over. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The problem is we rarely recognize the part of the cycle we&#8217;re in and there&#8217;s really no way to predict how long certain parts of the cycle will last. You never know where the bottom is until you&#8217;ve gone way past it, and the same thing for the top.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I honestly just don&#8217;t worry too much about where we are in the cycle, because the bottom line is this: Learn to recognize good deals and you&#8217;ll find them no matter what market you&#8217;re in.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/find-real-estate-deals\" target=\"_blank\">27 Ways to Find Real Estate Deals<\/a><\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In fact, I believe hot markets, like we find ourselves in today, are the perfect time to perfect our systems and processes and strengthen our skillsets so that we&#8217;ll be rock stars when the market does go down. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It&#8217;s like playing baseball, right? You practice swinging holding five bats at a time. It&#8217;s super heavy, four or five or six bats in your hand. You&#8217;re swinging up. It&#8217;s really heavy. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">But after a few practice swings, you drop all but one of them. And that one bat now feels super light so you can knock it out of the park. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That same principle applies to real estate. You get really good during competitive times and you&#8217;ll knock it out of the park when deals are everywhere. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Now, final note on cycles: although the market does go up and down, like I said earlier, it does tend to move up and to the right.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In other words, they still edge up higher and higher all the time, even though they do have temporary dips. Even if you buy a property at the very top of the cycle and the values then drop, it might not be that big of a deal i<\/span><span class=\"s1\">f it&#8217;s a rental property and you can look at your real estate on a long-term horizon. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">If your $200,000 house drops in value to $160,000 because of a market crash, how much do you really care if you plan to hold that property for 30 years? Because in 30 years, that house might be worth between $500,000 and $800,000.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Keeping a long-term perspective and knowing that prices rise and fall makes everything feel a lot better. But of course, you have to know which properties to hold onto for the long haul and you find that out through good math. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">Which brings us to lesson number four&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"p1 wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"s1\">4. Most Properties Are Not Deals<\/span><\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">At any given time, there are hundreds of thousands of properties for sale, but most of them are never going to produce the kind of money that you want. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The good news is, while we may not be able to predict exactly where something like Tesla stock is going to be five years from now, we can actually do a pretty decent job of estimating how much profit our real estate investments are going to produce.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And we do that through good math. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">For example, on a rental property, you can literally sit down and figure out exactly how much the rent is going to be, how much you&#8217;ll spend every month on taxes, insurance, utilities, etc., and you&#8217;ll find out how much monthly profit or cashflow you&#8217;re going to be making. And then you can make some simple assumptions like the rate of rent growth over time or the rate of property values, how much they&#8217;ll increase over the next 10, 20 years.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It&#8217;s really actually a lot of fun to do.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And if you really want a great way to do your math accurately, efficiently, and easily, I highly recommend you check out the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/investment-calculators\" target=\"_blank\">BiggerPockets investment calculators<\/a>. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">Also, for a simple method for analyzing rental properties. Don&#8217;t miss my video about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=T_7vhsSBi7c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">calculating numbers on a rental property using the four square method.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"p1 wp-block-heading\">5. Master the Art and Science of Finding Good Deals<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Finding properties that are going to produce the kind of return that you want is vital. And you have to analyze a lot of properties to find that perfect deal. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But this all begs the question, how do you find all those properties to go and analyze? <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Well, first, let&#8217;s separate deal-finding into two categories. There&#8217;s on-market deal finding and off-market. On-market means that it\u2019s listed by a real estate agent for sale on something that we call the MLS. That&#8217;s short for the Multiple Listing Service. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Basically, the MLS is like a big box where all the properties go that are for sale by professional real estate agents. W<\/span><span class=\"s1\">e mere peasants can&#8217;t actually get into that box where all those properties are.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>But we do have a couple of good options. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">First, we can have a real estate agent and we should have a real estate agent and they will look in the box for you. I like to say that agents should be on fire, not literally, but the organized, well-networked, focused on your goals, investment-savvy, responsive, and experienced. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Now, how do you find such an agent?<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Well, if you&#8217;re looking for a drunk, start at the bar. If you&#8217;re looking for a baseball fan, start at the baseball field. And if you&#8217;re looking for an investment-savvy on-fire real estate agent, check out the agents who are actively participating on a real estate investing website like BiggerPockets.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It\u2019s the largest real estate investment site on the internet. Y<\/span><span class=\"s1\">ou can imagine if there&#8217;s an agent hanging out in there answering questions, being involved, helping people, they probably know a thing or two about real estate investing. And from BiggerPockets, you can search your zip code and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/real-estate-companies\/find-real-estate-agent-directory\" target=\"_blank\">find agents in your area<\/a>. And, oh, by the way, it&#8217;s free to search and connect with agents.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Just go do it, you should just have an agent.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/3-steps-find-best-real-estate-agent-for-you\" target=\"_blank\">The Surefire Way to Find the Best Real Estate Agent in 3 Simple Steps<\/a><\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Also, in case you didn&#8217;t know, this is cool. Agents are actually paid by the seller of a property, so it&#8217;s free for you to use an agent. So you really have no reason not to connect with a great agent today. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But let&#8217;s go back to the MLS analogy real quick.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Remember I said the box? There&#8217;s this box and the agent can get into the box. They can dig around for properties that meet your criteria and they can send you those via email or whatever.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But let&#8217;s forget the agent for a second and let&#8217;s look inside the box ourselves, because the box actually has windows. We call those portals, they\u2019re windows into the MLS. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">I bet you&#8217;ve heard of them before: Zillow.com, Trulia.com, Redfin.com, and there\u2019s a whole lot more of them.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Dig around those websites to find properties for sale and then talk with your on-fire agent about getting into those properties to check them out in person. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But that&#8217;s all the on-market properties that we&#8217;re talking about. Listed properties, which is a great place to start. But the MLS is super competitive. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I<\/span><span class=\"s1\">f you want to take your deal-finding to a whole new level and find some screaming good deals, you&#8217;re going to want to look off-market. In other words, you directly contact property owners and ask them if they want to sell.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">There are a ton of techniques for doing this. In fact, I wrote a book called <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/store\/how-to-invest-in-real-estate-ultimate\" target=\"_blank\">How to Invest in Real Estate<\/a><\/em>, and my co-author, Joshua Dorkin and I\u2014he&#8217;s the founder of BiggerPockets\u2014we lay out 27 different ways to find great deals. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You can send direct mail marketing, you could do door knocking, you could use Craigslist, or you could go buy something at the courthouse foreclosure auctions, or you could use social media advertisements, or wrap your whole car in an \u201cI buy nasty houses\u201d banner, or whatever.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">There&#8217;s a lot of ways to do it. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">But whatever you have to do to get the attention of property owners so they sell directly to you and minimize the competition, that&#8217;s the goal of off-market deal-finding.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Now, a final note on deal-finding: It&#8217;s a funnel. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">At the top, you\u2019ve got to get a lot of leads coming in. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">Then you&#8217;re going to work those leads to find the ones that are really worth analyzing, to find the perfect purchase price. Every property has the number that makes it a good deal. You go find that number<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Then you&#8217;re going to go and pursue some of these properties. You&#8217;re going to go after it with an offer. And you know what? You\u2019re going to get rejected a lot. It&#8217;s going to be like high school prom all over again. But in the end, you will land deals. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And the more you can remember that deal finding is nothing but a funnel, the more deals you&#8217;ll be able to generate.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Now, let&#8217;s move on and talk about money.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"702\" height=\"336\" class=\"wp-image-122778\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/funnel-702x336.jpg\" alt=\"Vintage metal funnel with handle on old wooden garden table background\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"p1 wp-block-heading\">6. You Don&#8217;t Have to Be Rich<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">People think you have to be rich to invest in real estate, and, yes,\u00a0 if you&#8217;ve got a lot of money, you can put a nice 20-30% down payment and get a traditional bank loan to do the rest.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But when I got started, I wasn&#8217;t rich and I couldn&#8217;t do that.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Instead, I relied on a number of different creative financing methods to accomplish my goals and to build up a multimillion-dollar portfolio. Now they include techniques like using partners who would supply the down payment and then we would use a bank loan for the rest. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I also used seller financing, where the previous owner acted as the bank and I just paid them every month. One of my favorite strategies, another one I use a lot, is called the BRRRR method, which is probably beyond the scope of this video, but you can learn all about in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=udWrw5vhm2k\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">one of my other videos.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But be warned, I made that video prior to having a super long beard, so I look a lot more like a 13-year-old girl than I normally do.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h3 class=\"p1 wp-block-heading\">7. Investing Is Simple, Not Easy<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">At its core, real estate is fairly simple. Yeah, there might be a lot of options out there, but it&#8217;s nothing you have to have a Ph.D. for or even a high school diploma to understand.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But that doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s always easy. It&#8217;s simple to run a marathon, but it&#8217;s not always easy. It&#8217;s simple to have an amazing marriage, but it&#8217;s not always easy. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The truth is you can build amazing wealth and passive income through real estate investing, but not unless you work at it consistently and persistently.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I liken it to driving through a heavy fog. You know the destination you want to get to, miles down the road, but you can&#8217;t see very far in front of your vehicle. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">But if you pull over just because you can&#8217;t see far, you&#8217;ll never get there. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Instead, just keep driving, right? If you pull over, you&#8217;ll never get there. So keep driving. The zone of clarity moves with you and you&#8217;ll always be able to figure out that next step.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Read great real estate investing books, listen to great real estate investing podcasts, follow certain social media and YouTube accounts about real estate investing, and most importantly, take daily consistent action. Because that is what&#8217;s going to get you to the promised land. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In the words of the late, great Jim Rohn, he says life doesn&#8217;t get better by chance, it gets better by change. Start today by taking one thing you learn in this video and then apply it to your life.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Don&#8217;t let this just be another video that you watch and then you go back to living the exact same life that you&#8217;ve always lived. <\/span><span class=\"s1\">Let this video, let this day be the pivot moment for your life. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I want you to look back on this moment, 10 years from now, five years from now, seven years from now, when you&#8217;re sipping mai tais on the beach, you&#8217;re cruising around the country in a big ol\u2019 RV, or just while sleeping in until 10 a.m. because you don&#8217;t have to go to work.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Whatever your goal is, I don&#8217;t know what you want, but whatever you&#8217;re working towards, I want you to look back on this moment and remember, this is when you made a radical change that led you to that point. <\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">And guess what? You&#8217;re not alone. You can do this with us, with BiggerPockets, with the community.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Final lesson of the day: You can do this. I believe in you. You can do it and we&#8217;ll be there for you when you do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em>What do you need to make your first step into real estate investing?<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><strong>Help us help you in the comments.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No experience? No cash? No credit? No worries! Here&#8217;s what you need to know to get started in real estate investing today, from an expert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":710,"featured_media":118952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5524,7119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-investing-for-beginners","category-biggerpockets-daily"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}