All Forum Posts by: Bryce Jamison

For me it's about where you are financially and how many properties you're buying / selling and their commission a year.

I got my license last year and for all my continued education, brokerage dues, MLS fees and Realtor association dues it's about $2,400 a year. Where I am in my life $2,400 isn't life changing, so worst case it's is an expensive hobby...

But I closed on home as a buyer agent earlier in the year, so that will pay for the next 2 years. To my second point, if you're earning commission on at least one property every year it probably more than covers your expenses.

The reason I got my license is because I didn't want 2 people who only get paid if the buyer and seller make a deal talking privately to each other about the negotiation. I've already found out agents are 100% saying things I'm sure their clients wouldn't want them to in order to get deals done.

For everyone thinking about getting into real estate investing, I recommend spending at least 6 months educating yourself through websites likes this and its family of books and podcasts, other real estate podcasts, books at the library, and local meetups. After 6 months you'll know what strategy you want to deploy, and have the confidence and knowledge to do it.

This can also provide time to pay off any consumer debt, save an emergency fund, and start saving for a property as needed. This time can also be spent learning everything possible about your target market using websites like Zillow, or in your case the MLS since you're an agent.

Lots of options here. I see a lot of folks recommend offering labor in place of capital in partnership deals, but I don't know how likely that is for someone just starting out. The stories I've heard on BP of people having success doing this are people who have long track records of successfully finding, acquiring, and managing properties. I personally wouldn't put up all the capital and split equity with someone with no experience. 

For that reason I like the option of saving your own capital and investing yourself. An STR may be a challenging step one. They take a lot to manage. I advise your first deal be on "easy mode". To me this is either a house hack or a modest, class B or better, LTR, but if you're up for an STR you can definitely make more faster.

At this point in your life I'd advise putting all of your focus into finishing your degree, assuming you won't get drafted and can make millions playing ball.

While you're doing that I'd advise building good personal finance habits. This means being on a budget, building an emergency fund, and avoiding consumer debt. I'd also advise diving into all of the BP books and podcast. If you do that until you graduate you'll have the knowledge and confidence to start investing, but you probably won't have the money. That's okay because this is marathon, not a sprint. 2 years after graduation you could house hack your first primary residence, then buy a new primary every 2 or so years. If you do that, you may be able to retire by 35-40.

You can house hack so your down payment is significantly lower than a purely investment property.

You can also invest a few hundred dollars into getting your license and all associated memberships then use the proceeds from the commission of buying your house as a down payment.

I'm seeing a lot of partnership advice. The problem is when you're first starting out with no experience or a network of buyers and sellers it may be very challenging to get people to agree to cut you in on the profits when you're not putting any of your own money in the deal.

We've all been in your position. When your young your time horizons are shorter and you want things now. The reality is this, more often than not, is a marathon and not a sprint. Maybe it takes you 5 years to save up for your first place. That's okay because after that you could house hack a new house every other year, easily be a millionaire by 35-40, and probably be able to retire by 45-50.

For everyone thinking about getting into real estate investing, I recommend spending at least 6 months educating yourself through websites likes this and its family of books and podcasts, other real estate podcasts, books at the library, and local meetups. After 6 months you'll know what strategy you want to deploy, and have the confidence and knowledge to do it.

This can also provide time to pay off any consumer debt, save an emergency fund, and start saving for a property as needed. This time can also be spent learning everything possible about your target market using websites like Zillow.

Once you've got a solid foundation of knowledge, you can ask more specific questions in the forums. It's very challenging to answer broad "where do I start" type questions without writing a TLDR response.

I agree deals are harder to find because sellers still want COVID prices and interest rates are much higher. I don't think you need to do any of the entrepreneurial stuff you mentioned though. Instead, you could start making offers where the numbers do make it a deal for you. Your RE agent won't like making so many offer, and they'll give you flak for making "low ball" offers, but that's okay because there's dozens of other realtors behind them that will do it for you if they won't. You may get frustrated getting 19 offers rejected, but when the 20th one gets accepted you'll be stoked!

I'd also advise changing your paradigm on profit. I completely agree this is a ton of work for $300 a month. That's not what I'm doing this for though. It's the 10, 20, 30 year appreciation and debt paydown you mentioned that will truly build wealth. The $300 a month hopefully is enough to cover maintenance. You'll either eventually get enough $300s to live off, or you're old enough where you can sell some to bridge you until you can pull from your 401K and get SS (maybe), or sell and live off the proceeds. The dream a lot of guru sell of sitting on the beach retired at 30 after buying 2 houses is far from reality.

Quote from @Ghassan Jabali:

Hello Jacqueline,

I hope you're doing great and welcome to Bigger Pockets. I think it is prudent to save up that money with the $20K and let it grow if you can to save for any potential 6 months of expenses.

One thing I may recommend is to consider a Holding LLC for asset protection and anonymity to sequester your savings into. Should any personal liability be triggered, a plaintiff could go after any and all personal assets, including the funds you have been saving. However, if you put it into a Holding LLC that is filed in a state that has Charging Order Protection as the exclusive remedy, then the funds inside the LLC can be protected from any personal creditors. This can give you peace of mind and start investing inside of a business entity.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any additional questions.

Note: This information is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, financial, or investment advice. No attorney-client, fiduciary, or professional relationship is established through this communication.

Did you use AI to write this? I've never heard anyone recommend starting an LLC as step 1 to someone just starting out not knowing where to start. I've also never heard anyone recommend starting an LLC to put their savings in for their first investment.

At some point I do think it makes sense to start putting properties in LLC(s) to protect your personal assets, but it's absolutely not critical especially for the first property or 2.

I'd recommend spending some time looking into personal finance content. Dave Ramsey is a great place to start, but this community overwhelmingly supports using leverage to invest as opposed to waiting until you can pay all cash.

It's surprising to hear you've listened to a bunch of BP podcast, read 5 BP books, and still don't know where to start. That's exactly what I would tell people to do to figure out how to get started. There are ways to invest with none of your own money, but those strategies are challenging to implement with no REI experience or a network of buyers and sellers. If you have specific questions on how to get started, maybe we can better assist.

Your answer may be that you need to save money for a few years until you have enough for an emergency fund, pay off consumer debt, and a down payment on your first property. If you don't want to wait that long you'll need to increase your W2 income either through a raise or job change, or do other work for more income.

I don't often see people have success finding a mentor on these forums. It's a big ask to ask someone to share the knowledge they've accumulated over the years and guide you, plus your target mentor probably isn't in these forums looking for a new apprentice.

Instead, I recommend a targeted, tailored approach with you looking to offer something in return for the guidance you're looking for.

To me this means directly reaching out to the people you'd like to mentor you, in person if possible. .

It also means having what you're offering ready and tailored to the individual. If you say you'll do whatever, even if you give a list, you're putting the burden on them to determine what to do with you and creating another barrier to entry for yourself.

What you do specifically depends on the mentor. For an investor you could "drive for dollars" then use the deal calculator on this site to create reports of deals that makes sense in your area. If you took that to a meetup and gave it to every investor you met, I bet one would be willing to talk to you.