Do I have the right mentor?

[Baylus D. Nicholson]

Dear fellow members of BP,

     I have been studying real estate investing for 3 years now, not doing deals but reading, learning, and visiting properties. I recently got married this summer and now that things have calmed down I'm ready get my feet wet with real estate investing. So I have been listing to the BP podcast, visiting the BP forms, and networking as much as I can.

      I was at work at a marina and was just chatting with a man who had come up in his boat. I found out he was a real estate broker who also did real estate investing. I told him that I was just staring out and wanted to start with buy and hold properties. He gave me his contact info and we started working on our first deal. after speaking with him a few times he started giving me info about what kind of property the thought we should be looking for. he wanted to find some raw land and sub-divide the lots into a community and sell the lots out one by one. He wanted water front, with as many acres as he was able to get. I asked him what his top dollar amount was and turned out he wanted to bring in a car dealership owner for Ashville NC who would be able to bring our total top dollar to $5,000,000.

     I can not tell if I'm anxious or if I really shouldn't get involved. I would like to think about the money I would be able to make, however I am 20 years old, with not that much money, only knowledge and zero experience. I wanted to learn about buy and holds so I can become free of my job, but he is on a whole different level where he is already done buy and holds and wants to make fast cash with flips. should I try and find a mentor who is on the same page with me on buy and holds, with smaller amounts of cash, or should I just stick with it despite my nerves and see if I can make some money this multi million dollar deal?

     Thank you for the feed back.

      Baylus D. Nicholson

[Steve Vaughan]

I can't believe a legit broker/investor would think a learned but new 20 yo's first deal should look like this!   In all your books and podcasts, did any of their stories sound like this in the beginning?   

No.  No way. You won't have any control over this ownership structure or what happens.  Sounds like you've run into a salesman, not a mentor @Baylus D. Nicholson.  Pass on this. Keep it simple.  Stick to what you have been working so hard to learn!