Advice for a Newbie Interested in Rentals

[Cynthia Molina]

Hello everybody, like my title states, I am a newbie when it comes to real estate. I have invested into a few raw land properties and sold them. It took a bit of patience but thankfully they worked out. It's not my interest of choice, I did it thinking I'd get "quick cash" and for the most part I did but I ran into a couple of issues. Anyway, I would like to get into rental properties but my question to anyone who is kind enough to tell me is, where did you begin? It's simple to say "do research" but how exactly does one start? For example, I bought a property really cheap and later I found out, it had taxes owed. Before I knew it, I ended up paying triple in debt I never even created. So my question is, how can a person do research the "right" way in order to avoid an incident like mine? I'm taking baby steps so please take it easy on me 🙂

[Andy Bauman]

Have you found a REIA in your area? Many of them have newbie classes that talk about the basics. For example, the house that you purchased with bad debt should have been found during the closing process if you didn't find it yourself. In those circumstances you should have been able to go back to the seller and renegotiate due to the taxes or backed out of the contract. There are many posts on BP as well as many books out there that could give you a good start. Are you listening to the BP podcast?