Newbie looking to exchange with new or experienced investors.
New to Real Estate · Los Angeles · Member since 2020 · 1 post · 1 vote
Hello investors !
I am new to the real estate industry and new on BiggerPockets. I’m currently reading all the BiggerPockets books and listening to the podcasts. I really want to have a strong education before starting to invest.
I’d like to exchange with new investors or experienced investors and would love to hear about your story. How did you started ? What was your first deal ? What did you struggle with ? What are your future plans / goals ? What books did you like ? ....
I love to talk about Real estate but it’s not my friends’ favorite subject.
Therefore I hope to find on BiggerPockets « investor friends » to share our passion :)
Clémence
Welcome @Clémence Eeckeman,
My wife and I got started on our first deal before we even read a single book, super uneducated in matters of real estate, but took the leap none the less. Unfortunately for me, our terms of what investing were drastically different as well as time frames. So the very first thing we learned, know your exit strategy. Second, be on the same page with your partner or it all goes to hell:) But in all seriousness that was our best deal to date and it was a complete fluke.
Since then I've read so many books and forums, listened to so many podcasts and webinars, it can make a guy's head spin with all the options out there. But that's why I love it. I love that I can invest in RE for the rest of my life and have a different experience every time.
I guess I'll answer your questions directly.
1.) How did you get started? We were really hit by 2007-2008 and I couldn't hold down a job for a while so necessity made me look for different options to keep bread on the table.
2.) What was my first deal? I had a friend that was renting (we'll call him renting friend) from another mutual friend (we'll call owner friend) of ours and the house needed a bunch of work. My renting friend invited me over several times and expressed almost every time that he wasn't happy with the place and was wanting to find a house that needed less attention and maybe turn it into a multi-family scenario. Renting friend told me that Owner friend was actually trying to sell the property as soon as he could because of the same thought, he didn't want to put in work into this home, he just wanted to put his money into another home. I however worked in construction all my life and the things Renting friend was mentioning to me as problems were small issues at best to me. I called up Owner friend and we made a deal. I had no experience in making deals but I'd say to date this was my best one. I purchased it for $147K, put in around $30K, and sold for $215K. I sold within 3 hours of putting it on the market.
3.) What did you struggle with? Direction. Because I had no experience in investing in RE, I had no idea where to go. And because my wife had even less experience in anything to do with RE we struggled every time I'd want to talk about the next step. Fast forward several years, my wife and I have educated ourselves in RE investing, we built an LLC with a couple other families to invest in a couple homes, and now we currently just flip homes just my wife and I. Currently we are working on a BRRRR but we entered this home knowing the state of the economy and made sure that we had multiple points of exit strategies before getting into it.
4.) What are you future plans/goals? Our plan is to pay off debt with our flips and have enough passive income from rentals that we can move back to Oahu.
5.) What books do you like? I love "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". I actually was given it three times in my life and never read it until after I started an LLC with several other people. It gave me the drive after we decided that the LLC wasn't for us to strike out on our own without even a hiccup. Other books I like are, "Cashflow Quadrant", "The ABC's of Real Estate Investment", "The Book On Flipping Houses", and "The Book On Rental Property Investing". All are great reads.
As you can see with how wordy this post was, I too like to talk real estate. I have lots more that's omitted from this post for time's sake, but I wanted to let you know that you don't need to know everything to make a great deal. You just have to be driven to make a great deal.
Hope this helped, have a great day!
Welcome to the BP Family! I got started almost 15 years ago when my husband said we should figure out how to invest in real estate. We dove in head first with it being a second stream of money for retirement, etc. I was able to leave my full time job over 7 years ago to do real estate investments full time.
We tried almost every strategy (wholesale, fix and flip, lease options, private money, storage units, multifamily, etc). Our favorite strategy we've come back to is rentals and passive investing in syndications. It's nice to manage our investments, but not have to be in the dirt all the time. I still do a few fix and flips and fix up my new rentals, but I've loved the overall management of our investments.
We have struggled with almost everything at various times. My greatest lessons have been...have the right team, make sure your numbers are dialed in, and trust but verify.
Best of Success!
Welcome! I started by house hacking a single family home. Then I started gobbling up the podcasts, joined a networking group, and it's been a roller coaster ever since :) Always happy to chat more! Reach out anytime.