First Steps

I have been interested in Real Estate for a little while now and I did some aggressive saving to get my first property with a conventional mortgage.  Now I want to do much more, go further and keep this train choo choo-in till the end of the line!

My background so far is that I bought my first Condo Townhouse a year and a half ago. It didn't make sense to me that I was paying rent when I could potentially be paying the same amount or less and be building equity too! So I saved half of every pay check (set up automatic transfers to savings accounts) and finally got enough to get my first property. I spruced things up a bit - replaced old carpets that stank, put hardwood flooring down on the main floor, bought some furniture and wala, I had a home for myself and it looked decent amazing enough to get roomies - which I did!

Now I am hooked! I am looking to get another property in the next 6 months and this time I have some knowledge in my arsenal as I do more research and acquire the necessary tools. My main goal is passive income to start but the possibilities are endless! I just finished a 3 day workshop on getting started with Real Estate investing last weekend, I joined the BP community (PRO soon hopefully!), attended the BP Webinar last night and I can't wait to get started!

What I learnt so far are these:

You don't have to use your own money!
I was holding back because I felt I needed to save up again aggressively to get my next property. If I can get creative financing strategies to work for me here, I think this is going to be a non-issue from now on. Leverage resources! This also ties well with the fact that creative financing enables you to create deals. So boo hoo if deals cant be FOUND - I need to CREATE them! If its WIN/WIN for all involved parties, it will be a deal!

It CAN be passive..enough. 
I currently manage everything in my house and am wondering how much this can scale if I were to acquire more buy-and-hold properties. Thing is I haven't had to do anything major yet but I am totally handy and comfortable doing some minor renos and fixing things around the house - hallelujah Goolge! For the first few houses, I plan on doing the renos and minor repairs myself and contracting anything more sophisticated out. However, looking down the road, I would consider property managers in place. 

Knowledge ain't all - I need Systems!
Knowledge is useful but I can't see myself doing everything hands-on all the time. Knowledge+Systems=Golden! Sure I could hire someone but thats not always the perfect solution - Automated Systems will also go a long way. Imagine business coming to you rather than the reverse - motivated sellers, interested buyers and lenders .. mmmm.. sounds perfect. A system of tools set up to help facilitate this would be essential and saweet, especially if I want to be as hands-off as possible.   

So with those lessons/ideas front of mind, I think my next steps are to :

•  Practice deal analysis and exit strategies and creative financing options for each( 3 a day according to Brandon. 100/10/1 rule made sense. Do 100 analysis a month, make 10 offers, follow through with 1 - thats 1 deal a month, which ain't bad)
• Set up an automated way to capture leads and create personal database (i have some ideas - what do you guys do?)
• Continue reading forums and listening to the podcasts on BP
• Get in touch with the owners 2 doors down that have a 'For Sale' sign (seem like motivated sellers - mom owned the house, she is now in nursing home and house has been on market for a couple of months. Ideas?)