Real Estate Investing Gone Bad by Phil Pustejovsky
Honolulu, HI · Member since 2015 · 52 posts · 6 votes
Just got the audiobook. Very educational! It sounds hard to believe but makes me want to think twice about how I approach real estate. Some catches that I noticed were:
1) Get your real estate license so that you could protect yourself even just to do a wholesale deal.
2) Hard money lenders, wholesalers, professionals in law... anyone can screw you from a deal.
3) You almost always need a mentor.
This makes me wonder, can someone really start from the bottom knowing just a scratch about real estate investing. I would still take some risks on my own when I must. The question I ask to all the experienced BP members out there would be: Is it possible to invest in real estate with so limited knowledge?
@Brian Gibbons is being humble. If you wanna learn something, Brian's info is some of the best I've seen!!
@Nikki Grizzle and @Marcin Chojnacki make good points as well. Now here's my 2 cents.
I started out from below scratch. No money, no income, bad credit!! When I first started, I was one of 5 adults and 3 dogs living in one unit of a dive motel in Lakeland. Here is a link to a post where both Brian and I tell our personal stories on how we both started. Both are on the first page of this link.
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/244...
(I personally think Brian's story is closer to how it should be done. You will see, in both instances, that there ended up being a mentor involved. This will come into my next statements momentarily)
I started with one of the best beginners courses that I still consider one of the best ever!! And the best part is that you can now get it for free!!
Carltonsheets.com offers you all those courses from way back when, for free... If you put your email address in. (I have a spam email address that I put into all squeeze pages that offer me something I'm interested in but don't want clogging up my main email) You will find one of the most comprehensive beginners course in those pages that are still relevant to this day.
That being said, had I not found a mentor, or more truly had a mentor not found me, I might not have made it to this point.
I have said it before and I'll say it again, this is truly one industry that needs to go back to the tradesman/apprentice scenario.
Most of the foolish beginner's pitfalls and potholes could be avoided by learning from someone who has already made those mistakes, learned from them, and moved on to success.
If you have spent any amount of time here on BP you will have come across numerous posts from investors who blast the novice entrepreneur for clogging up the market with bad deals, or more concerning to me, accidentally break the law and risk major issues. Well again, most of these issues would be resolved by working under a seasoned real estate professional that could teach them the ropes and could steer them along the straight and narrow.
My recommendation is for you to go ahead and get your license for the basic knowledge and the credentials to legally do your business, then find an investor that is buying for themselves and succeeding in this business and volunteer your services for strictly for the education.
For more of this soapbox speech and practical tips on how you can actually find that person, here is another link!!😜
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/268212-still-havent-made-progress?page=1#p1754108
I do hope this helps!! :)
Spend $50 bucks here from @J Scott
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Read
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/180...
Get a quick start learning how to do "terms deals" like sub2 and lease options
There now, thats not too bad, it it? :)
I have met with a few people who are experienced and have been in the business for decades over coffee and lunch within the past two weeks and everyones story was different. I am a newbie and I had the same questions you had. I did not know where to start. Some told me to dive right in and others told me I needed to take a specific path meaning I had to take certain steps to get to the top. In the end I realized everyone is different so it is difficult to follow the same path as another. One may have more money to invest, another may have debt they need to pay. Someone may already have a group of people who are already investing they can learn from on a daily basis and another can have no one but the people they meet at networking groups. An older man told me to just do it which reminded me of a book I am reading that says the same thing. That is what my husband and I are doing right now. We saw 3 properties we loved. 1 for rehab and 2 for rentals. The rentals are going to be a breeze as we already are approved for a personal loan which we will use to buy the 2. The rehab we are still working on as one guy tried to screw us over point blank and it was obvious. But it was a learning experience.
Yes, most of us on here have started from scratch. Just do your homework! I think one of the only fields where the saying "if it's too good to be true, it is!" doesn't apply is real estate. Many properties can net you 25-40% returns per deal on cash invested. It's not rocket science but there is a slight learning curve.
I would be weary of many wholesale deals, there are a few reputable guys who are out there but many of them are first starting and thinking that they have good deals when in fact the deals they have are garbage.
Start off in an area where you know home values well and branch out from there.
Hope that helps!
@Brian Gibbons is being humble. If you wanna learn something, Brian's info is some of the best I've seen!!
@Nikki Grizzle and @Marcin Chojnacki make good points as well. Now here's my 2 cents.
I started out from below scratch. No money, no income, bad credit!! When I first started, I was one of 5 adults and 3 dogs living in one unit of a dive motel in Lakeland. Here is a link to a post where both Brian and I tell our personal stories on how we both started. Both are on the first page of this link.
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/244...
(I personally think Brian's story is closer to how it should be done. You will see, in both instances, that there ended up being a mentor involved. This will come into my next statements momentarily)
I started with one of the best beginners courses that I still consider one of the best ever!! And the best part is that you can now get it for free!!
Carltonsheets.com offers you all those courses from way back when, for free... If you put your email address in. (I have a spam email address that I put into all squeeze pages that offer me something I'm interested in but don't want clogging up my main email) You will find one of the most comprehensive beginners course in those pages that are still relevant to this day.
That being said, had I not found a mentor, or more truly had a mentor not found me, I might not have made it to this point.
I have said it before and I'll say it again, this is truly one industry that needs to go back to the tradesman/apprentice scenario.
Most of the foolish beginner's pitfalls and potholes could be avoided by learning from someone who has already made those mistakes, learned from them, and moved on to success.
If you have spent any amount of time here on BP you will have come across numerous posts from investors who blast the novice entrepreneur for clogging up the market with bad deals, or more concerning to me, accidentally break the law and risk major issues. Well again, most of these issues would be resolved by working under a seasoned real estate professional that could teach them the ropes and could steer them along the straight and narrow.
My recommendation is for you to go ahead and get your license for the basic knowledge and the credentials to legally do your business, then find an investor that is buying for themselves and succeeding in this business and volunteer your services for strictly for the education.
For more of this soapbox speech and practical tips on how you can actually find that person, here is another link!!😜
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/268212-still-havent-made-progress?page=1#p1754108
I do hope this helps!! :)
Traditional Finance is limiting thinking. Gets you into non-creativity and limits.
@David Dey we are from the same DNA. Financing Traditionally, let everyone else do that!
If you are struggling...
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@Account Closed It is very possible but it does not happen over night as they say it does. Let me put in perspective I am young Hispanic kid who grow up in the worst neighborhoods you could ever imagine. I have seen and done things that for a while I thought was normal because it is what every one around me was doing. I did things that should of put me away for many years and have even been in a few situations where I'm still not sure how I made it out alive. With all of the odds totally against me I still managed to be hopeful and create a vision for my self. I found real estate after watch the housing complex (600 + units) I lived at be purchased by RE development company for $250,000 and be subdivided and sold off for $2.3M. I studied Real estate for 3 years before I ever did my first deal 6 year I got my license you will learn as you ago little by little and eventual get to a point were you get confident in your knowledge because you notice you have educated your self enough to be able to hold and intelligent conversation with the best of them. The best part for me is that you will always learn something new in this business. The worst part is the vultures you will come across, I believe in handling business the old fashion way were a man stands by his word in this business you will see people who will sell there soul for a dollar.
I think one of the safest ways to get started is to buy an investment property, move-in, fix it up for sale, sell, and repeat. Once you get some deals under your belt and some experience rehabbing, you'll have a lot more confidence.