Newbie Real Estate Investor

[Alex Cohen]

I am a newbie investor just starting out in the Baltimore, MD area and looking for an experienced investor to guide me as a mentor. I am in the education stage of my process but really want to jump on my first rental property by the end of the year. If someone is in the Baltimore area and wants ti connect, let me know!

[Alan C.]

I agree with @Jonathan Greene. 

You can pay big bucks for a mentor/guru, but most of them are not great teachers. Or you can figure out what skills you have that an experienced investor could use. It may have nothing to do directly with real estate. Maybe you have great computer tech skills, graphic design or are great at figuring out and writing up office systems. There's got to be something that you can offer in exchange for some training--even if it's detailing the investor's car!

You're best bet is to attend local investor meetings and find out who are the senior "players" and then find out what they need. Most likely, they will be open to helping you when you have a way to help them. They could be at a point where they are done and tired of the day-to-day minutiae of investing, but still like to do deals if there's enough profit or they find it interesting for the creativity of putting the deal together. 

But you will need to demonstrate that you are serious. Most experienced investors are constantly approached by newbies who offer to "take them to lunch" so that they can pick their brain. The problem is that these experienced investors put a high value on their time and know that most newbies will never take action to be successful, so they only associate with other investors who are at their level or above.

Show them what you can do for them and they should respond in kind.