Getting Started

Wow! What a rush! The one thing about real estate investing is that it sounds so sexy! Driving around in a sexy car, buying a sexy new house, and rolling around in your sexy pile of cash!

Boy, what a wake up call when I showed up to my local REI Club. It was a bunch of normal looking people like me, driving regular cars like me, and just talking about deals they're making. This isn't sexy at all! I've been sold a bill of goods!

But I haven't. I started on Bigger Pockets, my head firmly attached to my shoulders. I knew going in that like any business, there's going to be a lot of hard work attached. The end goal is the easier life, but there is a long bumpy road ahead. So where do I start?

Well, I started like everyone else, I got sucked into "getting my education" and making some "quick cash" to get started. I nearly spent $20K on a training program. The event I went had some normal club members who've had some great success. I've been through the MLM before, I've been to the free portion of the Guru weekends, but I still got sucked in by some testimonials and a free lunch. My spidey sense was tingling, but I still bought into it.

Do I think the time was wasted? No way! I learned how I didn't want to get started.

So I ended up getting a refund on my money, investing in a Bigger Pockets Pro membership, and started networking with people not interested in just selling me training.

Do I think the REI Club is a waste of time? Not at all, there's genuine people there to get and give some advice. Some people are even willing to make some deals if the price is right!

So let me talk about how I'm getting started.

I've had coffee with a couple local investors, with appointments to keep meeting local folks, some from Bigger Pockets, some from contacts that I have in the industry.

My first week started with me trolling about 40+ blocks for leads. Some properties were listed and a terrible price, some were listed with a great price, and some were not listed at all.

I knocked on a couple doors and talked to some folks, left a cheap business card I printed at home with my contact info. I had a couple bites and a single return call about how I could help them out.

So being in the game for a single week, I've already made contact with other investors, people who may want to sell their home to me, and learned that Guru-like training is not for me.

Whew, what a week!