College Student Seeking Experience

[Patrick McNeil]

Hey BiggerPockets! My name is Pat and I am currently a Junior at BYU studying Finance. I currently have an internship for the summer at a local firm converting properties into multifamily apartments on a large scale, which is so cool! Working for this firm is a great experience, but I want to start investing in student housing on my own. What steps can I take to gain more hands-on experience in financing and renting out housing as a young college student?

[Dave Poeppelmeier]

This sounds like an excellent house hacking opportunity to me! Now, will a bank give you, a junior in college with likely not a whole lot of income, a loan? Probably not. But, you can get creative. 

If you are fortunate enough to have parents on board with your plan, you could see if they would use their credit for you and "buy an investment property" that you and your friends could live in. You pay the mortgage/insurance/etc with the rent from your friends, and off you go. Otherwise, you could reach out to local owners of Student Housing and see if they would be willing to do Seller Financing (again, likely requiring your Parents to be on the loan). 

If this isn't feasible, try to do some kind of internship at a local Property Management company. I would definitely screen what companies you talk to, see all of the posts about how to interview a PM company here on BP. Make sure they are a member of NARPM. You want to learn from someone who is doing it right, not someone who doesn't have their stuff together, is not ethical, etc. 

Otherwise, read, read, read. There are so many great resources out there to build your base knowledge of Real Estate Investing on, the more you can do now the better. I wish I was thinking about this when I was a Junior in college... Good Luck!!!