Things I did to prepare me for my first house hack.

           Things I did to prepare me for my first house hack.

                                                              “Just do it.”

Buying your first property can be scary. It was a scary process for me as well but you can’t let that stop you. If you truly have a goal of purchasing multiple properties in the future, than you might want to start sooner rather than later. Whenever I get a bit scared about making a move I think about the alternative. For example, If I decided not to purchase a home, I would have moved out my parents house where I was paying really low rent to then move to an apartment that has a really high rent amount. So high, that I probably wouldn’t have been able to save enough money to purchase a property or invest in anything I want. Not to mention the whole regret thing you’ll have if you don’t do it. Napoleon Hill once interviewed a bunch of people and the number one thing people kept mentioning was regret.

Fear is constantly stopping people from even trying, let alone succeeding. Failure and fear comes with the territory but you can’t let that stop you. Regardless of how many times you fail, it doesn’t matter because at the end of your journey, you are only going to look back your victories and successes and be grateful for the loses because losing is the best teacher.

Now back to regular scheduled blogging after my rant. There was various things I did to try to prepare myself as much as I could for purchasing a home. One of the things I did was ask questions. You will be surprised at how much you can learn from asking the right questions. The better the question, the more your mind thinks about finding an answer. And I learned that if I ask a big question, my mind will either figure out a big answer or lead me to it. The next thing I did to prepare for purchasing a home was to join Bigger Pockets. The third thing I did was that I analyzed and still analyze a property every day.

                                            Ask yourself big questions

When I began reading more self-help and real estate books, I kept reading authors writing that in order to grow, you have to ask yourself bigger questions. I didn’t really understand what they meant at the time but as I continue to grow, I am now understanding what they mean. Let’s use a simple example. If I asked myself a question like “how can I find a job that will pay the bills?” Then my mind will only work to find a job that will help me pay my bills. What if I were to ask myself “how can I find a job that will help me save enough money to invest and pay my bills?” With that question, my mind will probably work to think of finding a way to find a higher paying job because it knows and I know that I have to find something to cover my bills and leave me money for investing. There are no real limitations to what we can do. Only the ones we create for ourselves. This is something I am currently working on and will probably continue to do so until I feel that I have erased all the obstacles I have created for myself. So in the great words of Robert Kiyosaki, Don’t say I can’t afford it, rather say how can I afford it.

                                                 Join Bigger Pockets

Whether you are purchasing a home to live in or want to start a real estate portfolio, join Bigger Pockets. I am not getting paid to say this but for anyone even somewhat interested in Real Estate, Bigger Pockets is a no brainer. There is tons of information that can definitely benefit you. Tons of their information is free and they also offer a Kick ass podcast which will motivate anyone to begin learning about real estate. Everyone in the BP community is very welcoming to new comers and most people have no issues sharing their information. The only thing they might not share are their contractors (LOL) but besides that anyone interested should give it a try. BP helped me get started towards the path of Financial Freedom through Real Estate so I encourage anyone interested to give it a shot.

If you are someone who isn’t interested in real estate but wants to purchase a home to live in then I will still recommend BP. Some of the best agents are in the BP community and even though you might plan on living in a property your whole life, guess what, S@#& happens and wouldn’t it be nice to have a back-up plan so you are not scrambling trying to figure out how to get rid of a property? Just saying.

                                             Analyze a house everyday

Brandon Turner says this all the time. Analyze a property every day. Even if you are not sure about what you are doing. Analyze a property every day. Even if it gets annoying, analyze a property every day. I did this and it was annoying but then one day I started to understand what a good deal looked like. I began watching webinars and through listening to other investors on the BP podcasts, I began getting better at analyzing properties, I then began to talk to agents and my numbers became more accurate. I got even more interested and started a meet up just to have the ability to ask more questions in person to people in the investment world which then led to more accurate projections on my analysis of properties. By doing this every day, you can eventually get to the point where you can screen hundreds of property just by looking at it. I do not know if I am there yet but I can say that compared to last year me, this year’s me is kicking butt in the home analysis game.

So these are a couple of things I did to help prepare me for my first investment which was a house hack. I hope this helps anyone reading this and if it doesn’t feel free to let me know.