Experienced investors, what would you do starting out today!?

Question

My wife works on a college campus. We both graduated in 2010 and have decent jobs, and I'm actively saving money to get into REI part time.

The reason I mentioned the college campus bit is because today while having lunch with her at the university, I asked "if you could go back to school today, what would you major in and what would you do differently?"

I'll pose this as a question to experienced investors. If you were starting today, what would you do differently?

Brian P. · Answer

Of course, there is no right answer, there is always the problem of square pegs and round holes. I didn't get my BA, still had 6 units to go but I did meet my wife of 52 years there, so that made it all worth it.

My two sons graduated from UC Berkeley and have jobs they like due to those degrees, and try as hard as I could, I couldn't interest them in real estate at all even though they were fully aware of what it can do for you by watching me and their uncle who had been involved  in it since our teens.

When my father died, his will said we kids had gotten our inheiritance from him and my late mother the first 30 years of of life and his money was going to the Shriners Childrens Hospital. I told my kids the same, they won't be getting any gold from us for their golden years so they better address the issue now, if they want real estate they better get it themselves, ours is going elsewhere.

Point is even with everything needed at their feet, some people are college people and career job people. And some like most of our closest friends are high school grads that bypassed college and worked an ordinary job and then invested on the side (I gave up a corporate management job with a fortune 500 company to drive a truck in the middle of the night to work real estate) and now we are people who hire college grads. So the old to each his own, if your happy I'm happy, that is the real goal and the real test of your choices.

Andrew Massaro · Answer

I would skip college altogether and go directly into flipping houses right outta high school.  I have a degree in economics and the only thing I remember about college is how much fun I had.  One of the richest men I know barely graduated high school and didn't attend one day of college.

IMO, college is for people who want to get a job.

To live an abundant life... including, but not limited to, money and freedom... you simply need to think and feel abundant.  To quote (or maybe paraphrase) a line from The New Science of Getting Rich, "Talented people get rich, and blockheads get rich."  Most college degrees will get you a nice, safe $50 - $200k a year job.  A dream, a plan and unwavering faith and determination will make you a millionaire.

Just my two cents.  Good luck.

Suzie B. · Answer

I certainly understand some of your ideas.  I think everyone is so different.  I would have loved to have started investing in the rental and house flipping business just out of high school... or even college for that matter, but we simply didn't have the $$, the life experience, or the home repair/remodel under our belts either.  The housing market was too high back then too to make real estate a good entry for us at that time.

Besides that, after college I was more interested in gardening and free time than in investing... unfortunately!

I think in America they need to do a better job at educating students about investing in their futures.  I vaguely remember a home economics class in high school (I'm 36) where we were shown a check book.  That's about all I remember about anything home finance related... and that's sad!  If I had known how much money I would have today if I had put a tiny bit away when I first started working ... I would hope to say I would have done it, but I simply wasn't educated about it.

Andrew Massaro · Answer

Critical thinking is... critical.  If I went back to college, I would take a class on this exact subject.

I didn't say that rich and wealthy people don't go to college.  I just said it's not mandatory.  And, if I were to do it all over again, I would skip college and go directly into business for myself.  That's just me.

If you love what you do, you're in the extreme minority and a very fortunate individual.  I would highly recommend you do, and remain in, what you love.  And maybe explore ways to expand your income in that field.  With the technology out there today, I am sure there are ways.

I wouldn't ever leave something I love doing just because I view something else as having more income potential.  Again, I would just find a way to make more in that same field...

Again, if you think and feel abundant, opportunities for increased abundance will come your way.  And continue coming your way...

Nick Johnson · Answer

Great point J  Scott. For me, the biggest takeaway from my education was critical thinking. From the outside, real estate is complex and ever-changing. By using critical thinking, it seems like you can come up with innovative strategies to battle through any market and continue learning all the way.

Now if I'd just take the plunge, I'd learn all these lessons I KNOW I'll learn. Can't wait.

J Scott · Answer

Based on my experience, I would disagree.  Not going to college will likely force you into a job, regardless of how motivated you are to start a business.

The reason is two-fold:

- You can learn a lot about entrepreneurship in college;
- You can acquire skills to generate start-up money in college.

I know everyone will point to Bill Gates and a handful of other ultra-wealthy people when they say, "You don't need college!" but I'm fairly certain that most ultra-wealthy people (and most people who have started billion-dollar companies) have gone to college.  The Bill Gates' of the world are the exception, not the rule, and had they gone to college, they likely still would have been successful.

In fact, show one person who didn't go to college who built a successful ($10M+) company and I'll show you 10 people who have done it who did go to college.

In fact, the best recipe for entrepreneurial success I've found is to go to college and then get an MBA at a top-tier business school.  I'd be willing to bet that Stanford Business School and Harvard Business School grads have a higher percentage of entrepreneurial success than any other sub-group of people in the world.

And many of them don't start businesses right out of college.  They take jobs in the field of their choice (technology, real estate, retail, etc), learn the business from the inside out, save some startup capital and THEN venture out on their own.

The other benefit of this methodology is that if you fail, you're not going to have to flip burgers to pay your rent...you'll still have skills to go back and either try again or rebuild your war-chest for the next venture.

Nick Johnson · Answer

Thanks for the input. In all honesty, I really do love my day job. HOWEVER I simply know that it is providing me and my family health insurance and income, the latter of which will help me start buying properties.

I know it'll be years before I might have enough passive income to stop working, and I'm okay with that. I have the passion to get started, and I can't wait to see where it takes me once I jump in. Very happy I found bigger pockets to show me that I don't even know what I don't know!

Experienced investors, what would you do starting out today!?

Most Popular Reply