The Investor Mindset... Always Been There...
I think this is the right place to post this.... TL/DR for someone who doesn't care to read a life story of someone getting into real estate.
I'm glad I found BP... Wondering why I didn't find it years ago. I think real estate investing is my calling and it's always been this way. Real estate has been a family business for generations. My grandfather was a contractor. My uncle has a real estate agency and builds spec houses. My dad draws house plans and builds houses - himself - from scratch. He even mills his own lumber. I grew up around construction site after construction site. I love the smell of a framed up house and fresh drywall.
I have always been an entrepreneurial spirit... I remember using our very first home PC to print out a "magazine" (maybe I was about 7?). I packaged it and dropped it at the front door, then rang the doorbell. I think I was trying to trick my parents into buying a subscription. In junior high, I started a muffins and juice business with my friend; we went door to door and signed people up to receive fresh muffins and juice each Sunday morning. We actually made a little money doing that. I got that idea from a "kid business" book from the library - because apparently those were the kinds of books I checked out when everyone else was reading Babysitters Club books.
My roommate in early college had a father who was a real estate investor and a business owner. Through her, I got really into the real estate investing world. Was reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad at 18. Watched video courses about apartment investing. Drove around with my friend and her dad as he checked on his rental properties, collected payments, educated us. Went "driving for dollars" with her for a few months, looking for houses that appeared vacant... I remember sneaking to the side to look at the electric meters. Even went to the courthouse together to pull up property tax records. I was SO fired up. I have a memory of being maybe 19, Saturday night, sitting on the floor of our first apartment with a newspaper spread out, circling houses while my friends were out clubbing. So excited.
Waited tables all that time and went to college because, well, that's what you do, right? Got a useless liberal arts degree. Then I went to grad school and earned an MPA that I was totally unenthused about. Should have gone for the MBA, but hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
All through college I started little businesses to make extra money on the side. I did the eBay thing. I bought liquidated inventory and resold it. Thought about doing storage units. Everything I did was to achieve the end goal of making enough for a down payment on a property to get started in real estate. All roads led there in my mind. That whole time. They still do, actually.
After graduation, I was offered a government job where I would be making a good starting salary, incremental raises, good benefits - but I would be stuck in a cubicle for the rest of my life. Didn't take it. Couldn't take it. It felt like death for me.
Guess the point of my post here is to introduce myself, and let young investors/would-be investors out there know that if you have the entrepreneurial spirit in you, don't ignore it and try to do what you think people expect of you when all the signs and your gut are pointing you down your own path. I wish I had pursued real estate much harder instead of focusing on college. Sometimes I kind of wish I had majored in construction.
But I'm planning to start investing for real, buying my first property to flip (!!!) this summer. I feel excited, like my life will open up and I'll have butterflies every day when I think about my future career in real estate investing. I'm not 18 anymore, far from it, but I'm still young enough to make this my livelihood. Thinking about that job I turned down, when I was considering it, it felt like the end. Guess that's how you know what you're destined to do.
Hope this helps someone.