I’m an 18 year old college student and I want to become a Real Estate Developer in my career, is their anyway that I could get started now. I asked for a couple of books for Christmas and plan on getting my masters in Real Estate Development. I would appreciate any suggestions on what I can do now and in the near future to get started. Thanks
Reminds me of the question, How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
My point? Oh, yeah. Start out by educating yourself about all things real estate. Before you become a big, successful developer, you would benefit by investing in real estate. You know, buy a house and be a landlord. Or buy a fixer, make the repairs, and sell it for a profit. Learn the different techniques for buying and selling creatively, etc.
Best wishes. It’s good to see someone so young, so focused.
I guess more of my question includes how would I obtain financing for any real estate investment? Hopefully by the end of the summer I’d have some money but I doubt anywhere near enough to invest in a property.
Hondo, one of the illusions you are laboring under is that you need large amounts of money to invest. While that certainly makes the task easier, that is by no means a requirement. I realize to an outsider that sounds impossible, but I dare say most on this board will tell you the same thing, and most have purchased real estate without dipping into their pockets.
Real estate costs money, of course, but it shouldn’t be your’s. OPM: Other People’s Money.
AJ is right on the money…the reason that Real Estate has made so many wealthy is the great “secret” of REI…for free we share that secret:
LEVERAGE!!!
Leverage is taking little (or maybe zero) of your money and using others’ money to make the purchases…this is what OPM is!
Example (very theoretical and shows no ‘expenses’): You buy a property for $110K…you put down $10K and finance the other $100K. Later you sell the property for $120K. The return on your investment is not 1.09% ($120K/110K), it is 100% because you invested $10K and got $20k back!
Keith
Or you can do what a lot of other investors do; start finding good deals, put them under contract, assign the contract to other investors for a nice price (wholesale). This allows you to build up your cash, gain experience, and by then you’ll know exactly where you what level you’ll want to take your investing too.
how do you do exactly what you just said slharpe?
What it is is the assignable right to the house or condo or whatever your going to buy you get that right in an agreement from the current owner and state things like how long it will be until you actually buy that property but what your actually going to do is go find another person to buy that property for you at a higher price then originally set so you pay off the original owner assign the right of ownership to the person paying you and in the end you get a nice profit and another investor can park his money in the property with a 1031 exchange. Of course you want to start out small because the bigger the money involved the more experienced team of attorneys you will need around you to make the deal happen smoothly…
BUT HOW WOULD I GO ABOUT GETTING IT UNDER CONTRACT AND IS THERE CERTAIN NEEDS I MUST MEET TO DO THIS?
MY CREDIT ISN’T TOO GREAT SO IF I HAVE TO HAVE GOOD OR DESCENT CREDIT TO DO THIS IT’S PROBABLY NOT GOING TO WORK FOR ME, RIGHT?
THANKS FOR YOUR HELP.
BY THE WAY I’M CURRENTLY WORKING ON IMPROVING MY CREDIT FOR MY FUTURE INVESTING CAREER.
Your missing the point of the whole thing is to not need any credit because if you do it right you wont even purchase anything you will just make money off the deal.
You will usually have to make a deposit thats non refundable but in some cases it is refundable you have to talk to the guy sailing the property you then make that deposit before you do this though you have to make the owner agree on a due diligence period where they think you are making up your mind or not whether to buy the property this is when you go to work on finding someone to buy the property for you for a higher price this is where you make your money.
You need to find some property that you think you can flip it over to sell for a higher price than the owner is asking once you’ve done this you need to negotiate exactly how much you are going to put down as a deposit in cash and how long you have to close the purchase. You need to be willing to risk your down payment though because often these deals will backfire on you and the time can run out where even though you don’t close the deal doesn’t close the owner of the original property will keep your deposit.
Thanks mortalidiot I appreciate your help. Happy investing!
What is the best way to find undervalued properties, I’ve started to look online and throught the classifieds to get an idea of what properties are worth in both rent and sale value in certain areas but how can I find properties to potentially whole sale or bird dog
Drive through neighborhoods that are in a good location, safe environment, that is typically for the lower middle class. I’m also going to be 18 on the 21st. My goal is owning 2 properties before I graduate college, hopefully more!
Where are you located?
Have you thought about the MLS?
What about seller financing? Owner financing is a great way buy with a low down payment!
GL
Adam
Im in the DC area and go to school in Newark, DE. I mean I could potentially use owner financing however it is not a must. My parents have already said that they will cosign if I needed them to go in something with me so that’s not really that big of a deal. Right now I’m working on getting some money saved up through stock etc. so that I could put a down payment down around my senior year of college.
I bought my first house 3 months ago. I got a contract off the internet and took it to the seller and they signed it. No one looked at my credit or even asked if I had a job. There are proven strategies for techniques to make money in real estate. You don’t need money or credit in many cases.
How do you evaliuate a package deal? Are they worth the investment or time? I was looking through properties for sale on a website in Baltimore and I came across some listing for 3 properties for $80,000 are the deals possible for money making or is it harder to turn because you need more time and the costs that grow while you have the property. I’m assuming this property was packaged by a bank or Fanie May but is this a good investment most of the time or no. If it vary’s whats a good way to evaluate it?