First – Baby Steps

I've always been known to jump right into whatever I'm doing. I burn really bright for a short time and then just as quickly, I burn out. The point of this blog and hopefully the BiggerPockets community is to not allow me to do that this time. I want real estate investing to be the reason I wake up every morning satisfied because I'm finally accomplishing something.

With all that said; let's get into the progress that I've made this week:

I met with my friend Jim on Thursday. Jim is a real estate agent in the Denver area and he gave me access to a website that I'm guessing is similar to the MLS (I haven't checked it yet). Additionally, Jim will keep his eyes open for any deals that might be around; I'm not expecting much from this because he deals mainly with homebuyers, but there's potential in everything. Even if the contact with Jim turns out to be nothing, at least I'm still getting exposure to people in the real estate world.

I figured out a general plan for my REI career path. I'm going to start out with renovations and after I've built up enough capital, I'm going to move some of my money into notes. There is still a lot that I have to learn about all of this, but I know that I don't want to get into being a landlord because dealing with bad tenants is not something that I'm looking forward to. Plans might change, but as far as I see it right now, this is the best path. One of the reasons that I picked note investing as the endgame is because it looks similar to "traditional" investing (the stock market) except there's always the possibility of turning a nonperforming note around.

My marketing plan to get everything started off is on hold right now until I can gain a bit more capital; I'm looking for about $4,000 to start my marketing campaign. I plan on partnering or wholesaling the first few properties I get just to build up some capital to do a renovation on my own. The way I see it is that hard money lenders want you to have some skin in the game so I have to grow some skin first.

Really what I'm looking for right now is someone to work for in order to build up this capital. If I can find a good investor in my area that is looking for someone to do some analytics, swing a hammer, manage an office or get him/her some coffee, then I'm all for it.

On top of all that, I think I have a decent layout for my website and business name structure or branding. I posted a question about it on the BiggerPockets forum, but haven't gotten a response yet; let's hope I get some feedback or I'll just roll with it. I think it's a decent enough plan. Below is the URL to the post:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/80/topics/125045-branding-thoughs

I know I probably don't need a website or business cards right off the bat, but it makes me feel better to have something professional to look back on even if I am just one guy working out of my house.

I think that's it for now, definitely wrote a lot more on the subject than I thought. Looking forward to making more baby steps in the next few weeks and meeting all of the BiggerPockets members in Denver at the next Denver BiggerPockets meeting!