From support engineer to full time investor

[Tariq Hakeem]

I am fairly new

to real estate currently I am a support engineer that commutes an hour

daily to go to work. I am looking to go full time in real estate but am

not too sure how to get my foot in the door. Do you have any pointers or

advise you would give a new investor.

[Don Konipol]

@Tariq Hakeem

Capital, knowledge, experience. You need at least two of the three.

The fastest, most efficient way to your goal , assuming you have none of the three, at least not in adequate amounts, is to get a position with a REIT, real estate investment company, real estate developer, or commercial real estate broker. Same cam be achieved while working in an unrelated field, but the timeline is greater, and the amount of effort is multiplied.

I can tell you what NOT to do: DO NOT spend $20,000 or more for guru mentoring. Guru mentoring is strategy specific; even in the rare case where the single strategy works, it won’t work for everyone, in every market, and for all time. Better to spend your time and money learning BASIC concepts of real estate. Courses offered to obtain licensure are inexpensive, as are community college courses. For more money you can obtain a degree in real estate, with the added advantage of the degree opening job opportunities in the real estate field.

Here’s my take after 40 years as a real property and real estate debt investor, syndicator, fund manager.

1. The education value obtained from these mentoring programs is very small compared to less strategy specific education

2. Becoming a real estate broker, does NOT provide an obvious path to real estate investment success.

3. Generating enough income from real estate investment activities ( as opposed to real estate business or job activities) to provide upper middle class to upper income lifestyle requires A LOT of capital.

4. Obtaining significant outside capital, either as debt or equity, requires a significant amount of experience and knowledge.

There are exceptions to every “rule”. Someone having paid $20,000 for a mentoring program will utilize the knowledge and create a very successful real estate business. However, he will be the exception; 99% of the people paying for a mentoring system will no longer be active in real estate investment within 5 years and most will have earned limited return on there investment.

I guess the bottom line is that there are few shortcuts, and those that exist don’t cut the time or money commitment significantly. I see more and more real estate investors who have no understanding of real estate fundamentals, and don’t realize how much this costs the, in terms of time and money.