Looking for a Blue Collar Mentor

[Tim Kirk]

I have a hard time reading through the forums because so many of the posts feel like everyone is out to prove they know everything. So many abbreviations, head shots, and fancy terms. 

I would like to connect with a mentor. Someone to bounce questions off of. Someone down to earth who hasn't already conquered the world.

I have listened to a ton of the BP podcasts and I really enjoy them, but I have not found a sweet spot in the forums. 

Not trying to be a Negative Nancy :) I think I'm more blue collar and too much of the forums come across as white collar professionals. 

Anywho...we currently have 5 single family properties. Four are paid for in full and one has a loan payment. I prefer small footprint houses. Two bedrooms is my preference. I have been hunting for small multifamily, but my market is very single family heavy. I would like to add one or two more properties this year, but I am struggling to game plan my way there. 

Would appreciate hooking up with a mentor with a small'ish portfolio...5-12 properties. How did you get there? Why did you stop there?

I am not interested in investing out of our market and we self manage. We're located in the Midwest.

Thanks in advance! TK

[Marcus Auerbach]

@Tim Kirk mentors are not like in the movies, so I don't know if what you are looking for is realistic. But it's also 2026 and you can ask AI, but don't use it like Google. You have to give it context about you first.

The easiest thing to do is to write a word document that summarizes you and your business. List your properties, what works for you, what's doesn't, how much you get in rent, what the biggest issues are. And of course your goals, skills, assets and limitations. Add a break down of your local real estate market. 

Then go to ChatGPT, create a CustomGPT, call it mentor, upload the context documents, give it some general instructions: for example, act as my mentor, use simple language and avoid fancy acronyms, be critical with your thinking and help me find my blind spots and shortcomings in my thought process. Use BiggerPockets.com as a reference, but ignore users with under 1,000 upvotes. Save.

Now you have a mentor on your phone, who knows everything about your real estate and everything that has been written on BiggerPockets. Talk to it while you are in the car and drive or access on your computer