So my dreams of becoming a real estate investor are slipping away or closely moving to the back burner. In a trial and error venture I have figured out what i should of been doing from the beginning, wholesaling. I have tried rehabbing, flipping, and i am a current owner/occupy landlord.
Like I said before I am a full time real estate investor. But its getting harder with out any cash flow. 2 weeks ago I decided after reading www.reiclub.com and contacting cash buyer that i would start out by wholesaling. I have driven around looking for properties did research and have even mailed out letters. I am in serious need of getting cash flow and getting it asap.
The thought of going back to a full time job is really stressing me out. I dont want to give up! I want to be a successful investor. I have a serious passion for it. I was going to announce to my local real estate investors club that I am a new investor in the local area and wholesale to people in the club. I have been a member for a year now, but stayed silent until now I want to get my business up and running.
Having said that, I have tired everything, My credit is shot, and no income right now I am using my fiances credit and her income which is not a lot. I need to know what i am doing wrong and/or what I can do to become better at my choosen career. I WANT TO SUCCEED IN REAL ESTATE.
At this stage, you need to do one thing and one thing only: FIND A HOUSE AND WHOLESALE IT. This will put some needed cash in your pocket and give you confidence.
What have been the results of the driving around and the mailings that you’ve done? And what kind of mailings have they been? Are these just letters to the owners of the houses that you’ve spotted, or is this a larger list?
You need to get some marketing going for cheap, so the first thing I’d do is make some “I Buy Houses” business cards and hand them to every single person that you meet. This is no time to be shy about it…you are trying to put food on the table here.
You also might consider bandit signs. Personally, I hate these things, and I’ve chosen not to use them in my business. Having said that, everyone I know who uses them swears by them. If I were facing the decision to quit and go work at a “real job” again, I might bend my ethics a little and use bandit signs, too.
It’s time to start doing some guerilla marketing here, so think about ways that you can get your name out there for cheap…business cards, bandit signs, flyers, door hangers, get the local pizza shop to slap your flyer on the pizza box, etc…
If you have no money, have bad credit, and no income, you are not a full time investor. You want to be a full time investor, but apparently don’t yet understand this business. In other words, you are the norm. The vast majority of newbies fail in a short period of time, and that’s where you are now.
The CRITICAL question is what to do now. With no money, bad credit, and nothing ready to close, you need to take immediate action. I would suggest immediately getting a full time job that will pay your bills. It is virtually impossible to be a “full time investor” with no money and bad credit. In your spare time, you can work on REI and more importantly work on your credit. There are 168 hours in a week which is more than enough time to work a full time job AND work 40 hours a week at REI. If you really want to be in REI, then you need to be willing to do whatever it takes! Once you are successful, then quit your job.
You said that you have tried rehabbing, flipping, and being a landlord. If you failed at all three of these viable strategies, that should tell you something. REI is not brain surgery. If you understand the basics of the business, you should certainly succeed. Get educated. Meet and become friends with some of the successful investors at your REIA. Develop a realistic plan and follow that plan.
I believe your far away from being a successful investor. Simply wanting to be successful is not enough. I would like to have the lifestyle of Hugh Hefner, that doesn’t mean I’ll be like him anytime soon.
It takes me an average of 2 hours while driving around to find a potential deal. Since your a “full-time” investor, why haven’t you found 4-5 properties today? Are you wasting your time looking in the wrong places?
Trying to succeed without some kind of plan will never happen. Even if the plan is in your head, you need to figure out your direction of travels to get to your destination of being successful. Map out the terrain of where you stand in relation to the obstacles you will face and the competition you will encounter. Shoot the azimuth and get moving. Thus far it seems like you have no direction, just a destination. You don’t travel cross county without knowing which roads you’ll take, and you don’t become a successful entrepreneur without knowing which roads you’ll take either. There is no room or time for this trial and error venture crap. You win or lose, you succeed or you fail, you do or you don’t, that’s all their is to it. Life is hard, it’s much harder if you’re stupid. Don’t be stupid!
I don’t know of a single successful business whose owner(s) weren’t confident they would succeed before it even got started. No one wakes up in the morning to push with everything they’ve got, a business they don’t think is viable. If you’re not giving it 110% at all times, you have a snowball’s chance in hell. You seem to want the results but dabble with the work it takes to get there because your unsure of what your doing.
Get mad, get aggressive, and do it already! Forget wanting to be successful and just get the hell off the computer and do it. You’ll know what exactly it is you need to do and where you are lacking. Fix the deficiencies and “git 'er dun!”
Well I am not giving up. I want to thank everyone for their input. Maybe I have put the cart before the horse. I am handing out business card and networking with everyone around my area. I have a list of cash buyers and going to focus on wholesaling. When I say trial and error I mean I tired to figure out where i want to focus in REI. I am going to sit down and map out a clear road to my goals. Your right when you say I know where I want to be but I have to draw out the map to get there. Again thanks alot for your help.
The absolute best advice I was ever given was very simple. “You’ve got your job, that pays your bills, that’s good, keep it. But what you have to do is find something you can do on the side and just SAVE that money.”
That’s what real estate investing should be for you right now. There is nothing wrong with going back to a job. Look at it like this… Every penny you make investing can go right into the next deal. The pressure will be off because your not living on this money and THAT will help you make better decisions.
Take a deep breath. Go find a job. It’s temporary. Go to work knowing that in a few years you’ll be done and everyone there will still be grinding away. These little mind games can be very powerful, use them to your advantage.
I laugh every day at my part time job. I know most of the people will still be there 2-5-15 yrs from now and its rather pathetic. It’s not what I would call a great job and only the upper level management make what I would consider a passable wage (see also can barely support a family), not what I would consider a good wage. I laugh at them to myself every day and think…“Suckers, you’ll be here forever and I will be on to bigger and better things.” Sad but true, some people don’t have the means or drive to achieve.
Once again you hit the nail on the head. What’s even more amazing is talking to these people…
A guy I work with was walking to work last week when I stopped to give him a ride. It’s 4 degrees outside. I ask him what happened to his car? Ahh, it blew a head gasket, don’t have the money to fix it right now. Well we get to work and he takes off his coat and there is a huge bandage on his arm. I say, What happened? Oh, Just my new Tatoo. WOW! How much did that cost you? Ahh, The guy’s a friend of mine $400!!!
Remember, this is why so many people will NEVER make it. Their priorities are so far out of whack that they don’t have a prayer.
I am going to sit down and map out a clear road to my goals.
where’s the money coming from? how are you going to pay our bills? using your fiance’s credit and her money from her job is just…forgive me for saying this…Bullsh*t!
you sound like a deadbeat guy who “dreams” more than he works!!
i don’t mean to come across here too harsh - but man what you wrote really burned my cookies.
dude, get a job. period. how do you expect to invest in real estate with no money, no credit - using your fiance’s cash and credit???
if you’re going to “wholesale” - then do it. no maps needed - just get a good contract signed by a seller and assign the contract. you say you’ve been networking, “announcing” to the local reiclub, etc - then this shouldn’t be a problem.
i will tell you what the problem is, REAL ESTATE INVESTING IS NOT EASY.
those that are successful at it, had a plan and implemented it. it sounds like your plan was/is to use your fiance to pay your bills and ruin her credit.
if you’re going to sink the ship, at least don’t take anyone else with you!!
i’ll go with property managers feedback here - GET A JOB!!!
don’t consider it giving up. never give up. but i mean you don’t have to be a “full time investor” to make money in real estate. and obviously, you’re doing something VERY WRONG here, so get the job, suck it up and quite ruining your fiance’s credit and stop stealing her money.
please please please don’t turn this into a personal attack or come back at me with some lame excuse - i just read your posts and based my response solely on what you wrote.
I have made a few mistakes and i realize that i went aobut this the wrong way. Now i am trying to correct my errors and learn from my mistakes. your responses are constructive and I am learning from and the comments. So currently i am looking for a job and plan to wholesale on the side to build up my cash flow. And you are right i do have a dream and goal but i didnt know how to get to where i wanted to go . My fiance and I both set up goals and a path to get to where we want to be.