I am new to real estate investing and want to be on my path to financial freedom. I am young and have some money saved up (and I have a job). I was wondering where I should start? House hacking? Wholesaling To build capital? I have done much research and read a couple of books but want to start networking and gain knowledge from mentors or more experienced investors. Thanks in advance!
From my experience is don't stop learning and budgeting! I've found out first hand that budgeting your money will help you run your real estate business so much better starting out. It helps that you have some money saved up so keep on saving! Next I would determine what type of investing you would like to do. Most say house hacking so that you can lower you monthly cost and get started on a smaller scale. I think its a great way to get started and its what I plan to do myself. Do your research and ask lots of questions! For next steps practice analyzing deals and even start talking to lenders to find out what you can get approved for. That would be my suggestion as if you are looking to work with a real estate agent most will want to have you pre-approved so you can jump on a deal when you find one. Or you can look at other ways of financing deals but I am not super familiar with those methods yet myself. Best of luck to you!
@Jeffrey Bollo Welcome! As many others have said here House Hacking is a great way to get started. If you've got stable income and good credit, buying a small multifamily with an FHA loan to live in while renting out some of the other units is a smart move. It's the kind of thing I wish I had done in my early 20s.
Some good podcasts to listen to: Biggerpockets Podcast (obviously), CRE Project (focuses more on commercial development and real estate but they have ALOT of really smart guests and this a good space to look into as you start to scale), How to Scale Commercial Real Estate (for the same reasons as CRE Project, but this show has shorter episodes, like 20 minutes a piece and PACKED with info).
But the biggest thing that's going to help your learning process? Just dive in! You will learn way more from every project you take on than you will from forum posts, coaches, podcasts, books, etc. By telling people what you're doing, by putting your money at risk, you create an unstoppable train of momentum and it leads you to think differently to solve the problems that come up.
Best of luck, and this forum is always here any questions you have!
What if you start with the end in mind? Financial freedom? What does that look like? What will achieving that allow you to do?
Then ask yourself if X (wholesaling, flipping, buy/hold, etc) will be the best way to get there. Either way you'll need to build capital, but how much time will you spend on a strategy that's not going to get you to your end goal?