Asked and Answered. Sustained. Stop Asking These Questions.
9 Replies
Jonathan Greene
Specialist from Montclair, NJ
posted about 1 year ago
Please for the love of Robert Kiyosaki, search the forums before you ask these questions. They have all been asked and answered millions of times, but somehow the same questions keep coming. Bigger Pockets has more than just these forums, they also have a library of books that will answer most of these questions.
Searching the forums first will give you some base knowledge to ask a more refined question when you want to hit the forums to ask something. Better questions will get you better answers. Here are the questions to search because if you search them, you will have all the answers you need in previous posts.
- - -
1. How do I become a real estate investor?
2. Should I set up an LLC for my real estate business?
3. How can I invest in real estate with no money?
4. I want to be a wholesaler, what's my first step?
5. Should I get my real estate license?
6. Where should I invest?
7. If you had (insert random value), where and what would you invest in?
8. How do I find an investor-friendly real estate agent?
9. Do I even need a buyer's agent?
10. How do I find a real estate mentor?
11. I'm thinking of getting my real estate license, what brokerage should I go to if I don't want to be a full-time agent?
- - -
These are relevant questions and some of them are even good, but they are asked and answered over and over and over and over. If you want to ask better questions in the forums and get better answers, search the forums first, read the responses, add in the research you've done, and ask a well thought out question that has not been asked the same way a million times. Because when you don't, you will get a ton of parody answers and you won't even know that they are intended to mock the question you asked.
Does anyone want to add to this list?
Allan Smith
Rental Property Investor from Nashville, TN
replied about 1 year ago
Haha another flame by Jonathan. You're going to scare all the newbies away =D
Oh, I remember the days when people would post and get helpful kind people to respond.
That being said, you aren't wrong. There are many lazy posts that are redundant.
Bill Brandt
Investor from Las Vegas, NV
replied about 1 year ago
You forgot....
what accounting software should I use
What kind of locks should I use
Should I wait for the next crash before I invest
Where should I invest?
Should I invest for cashflow or appreciation
How much cashflow is acceptable
My appraisal came in waaay to low, now what
My tenant broke the lease owing money, now what
How do I know how much insurance should be? Property taxes?
Where do I get a lease? Do I have to honor existing leases?
And 20 more that I answered personally several times.
Lee Ripma
Rental Property Investor from Los Angeles, CA
replied about 1 year ago
This is an awesome post, it is really annoying to read the same questions over and over again. Would a few basic searches kill people before asking the question? I guess so!
Couple more:
Can I still get tax benefits from my RE if I don't have an LLC?
I have 100k and I want 10k/mo in cash flow, what to do?
I hate my job and I’ve never done an RE deal, should I quit to go into RE full time?
How do I find a mentor who will teach me every single thing without me taking any initiative?
The LLC confusion kills me the most. Yes, you can only get a Commerical loan if you're closing in an LLC, no you don't need an LLC to get the tax benefits of RE-LLCs have nothing to do with tax benefits, no you don't need an LLC before you do your first deal.
Jay Hinrichs
Real Estate Broker from Lake Oswego OR Summerlin, NV
replied about 1 year ago
the real question is how do you search.. I cant figure out how to do that..
maybe if the search function was easy folks would do it more.. I know I try to find things and cant.
and if you stopped all these questions the amount of posts would dry up to where no one would be checking to see what has been posted since every single question has been asked and answered counselor.
Dillon Dale
Real Estate Agent from Owatonna, MN
replied about 1 year ago
@Jay Hinrichs I agree. Cannot find the search function on the mobile app. On desktop it works great. On mobile I use chrome, type my question, then type biggerpockets in order to search old forum posts
Dylan M.
Rental Property Investor from Glens Falls, NY
replied about 1 year ago
Should I start small or go huge?
Mike Miller
Rental Property Investor
replied about 1 year ago
When is the next recession?
Lee Ripma
Rental Property Investor from Los Angeles, CA
replied about 1 year ago
I agree the search function isn't good. I actually use google to search bigger pockets. On google: bigger pockets do I need an LLC to get tax benefits. Google has got searching down. BP not so much but it's still pretty awesome!
Jonathan Greene
Specialist from Montclair, NJ
replied about 1 year ago
On a desktop, you just hit the magnifying glass and then type in what you want, but you have to tab over to forums or discussions. I agree that it's not great, but that doesn't mean you can't do it. Asking people to see if the same questions exists in the BP sphere is more for their benefit than ours. I can ignore the inane duplicate posts, but if someone posts an obvious question that has been answered a million times it makes me think they are lazy and more likely a taker than a giver. A giver scrolls the forums however they can, reads up, and uses that back-knowledge to ask a good question, thereby getting better answers. Coming onto a site like this and asking "How do I invest?" is like Seth Rogen asking Aubrey Plaza if she likes music in Funny People.