Bird Dog or Apprenticeship

[Christian Brown]

I'm just starting out in REI and I know that I want to apprentice with a particular mentor to learn to do deals with creative financing strategies(owner finance,sub to...)

That coaching is actually very reasonably priced compared to others on the market and typical "guru" charges. There's no lump sum, just monthly mentoring and marketing costs that I would cover with a business line of credit at 0% for 6 months until I get my first deal.

On the other hand for a one time fee of a couple K I could quickly learn the sales system of a very successful REI group, JV a couplebof much smaller, transactional deals with them and then use that $ earned to fund the apprenticeship.

I'm sure the apprenticeship is where I want to be and so my dilemma is really in the start up cost. Do I dive right in utilizing the biz credit available to me, or do I JV doing the transactional deals with no cash flow, or equity capture in order to build enough to self fund without using the credit line?

As you can imagine I'm trying to avoid wasting time and $. Any and all constructive input is definitely appreciated.

Thank all!