I’m 16 soon 17 and from eastern ky, how can I get started in real estate early if possible, and does anyone know if real estate is profitable where I live??
Any Help Is Appreciated…
I would find your local Real Estate Investment Club and start attending the meetings. When at the meetings find out who the experienced (full time) investors are and get to know them. Find one you like and go to work for them you will learn so much from them by the time you are 18 that you will be ready to invest yourself.
That will let you know how profitable real estate investing is in your area.
Keep reading these forums they are the best thing I read to get started in this business.
Chris
From what I understand, you need to be 18 to legally get into binding contract. You can start by studying the business since it takes a good year or two to understand it.
At 16 or 17, you can do birddogging which is where you can find properties for other investors who will then pay you a fee, usually $500-$2000 per deal.
Also finding a local investor that does rehabs would be great and you can find him deals and then ask them to show you how to rehab properties so you can learn some things like figuring out rehab cost, possibly doing some of it, negotiating with contractors to do work, etc. Your at a great age and as long as you can show your professional and clean cut i think many local investors would not mind taking you under their wing. I admir young people wanting to go into REI so young b/c it means they know what they want. By the time your 20, you can be a millionaire…never know.
He won’t be a millionaire by age 20. I wish people would be more realistic about investing and stop making it sound as if people can be rich in few years. Very few make it, most drop out of the investment business.
Your priority is to finish highschool, then go to college. Real Estate Investing is a business and to be successful, you need to have a solid business model. Make sure college is your first goal, and meanwhile, you can study real estate and do it on the side if you like. If it works out and you can live off it, great! otherwise, you will have a degree and get a good job and maybe invest later.
I agree, go to college. Get a business degree. People will take you seriously.
I know the response to this is that there are plenty of folks out there who never graduated high school and are rich…this is true.
But do youself a favor and get educated…I finished college and soon start more military training. I won’t be able to get into RE hardcore for another 2 years, but I am reading and learning so when it is time for me to get going, I can jump in.
What I majored in college for (Systems Engineering Management) I will probably never use in my kick ass J.O.B. (Pilot in the Air Force) but when I tell people where I went to school, they all start drooling. I will probably go get my master in 2 years as well and again will probably not ever use it again, but I will have it.
When people respect you, look up to you, or realize you have a brain, they will listen to you and it makes it easier to work a deal.
I just started a few deals before I leave for training and I get on the phone and talk them through the process and sound intelligent and they have no clue I have never once worked a deal before. Thank God I have a partner who knows what he is doing…
Anyhow, I will climb off my soap box, but educate yourself!
Good luck too!
~joshua
Now I do not totally agree with the education… Not everyone is school material. Some people are natural salesman and education will not help them go futher really. These natural salesman with incredible voices and savy sayings make great stock brokers where all you need is a HS Diploma and then go for a series 7 license. Many top notch sales people earning high 6figures never went to college. College will not help you sell a car, computers, furniture or whatever. Everyone needs to find their passion and follow it. If your passion is real estate, then go with that. I would move for learning the insurance business so you still have your feet wet and contacts in REI, mortgage broker by far require no college and many dont but make an excellent income once established in there market. Real estate agents as well, they have agift for selling, reading clients, showing them what they want, negotiation a deal, etc. Now you want to be a doctor or lawyer, goto school and get the special degree.
I am not saying no college. Anyone wanting to have a business (REI included) should take some accounting classes, money management, marketing, creative writting, etc. These will help you out in the future. Why goto college if its not for you. I hated school , use to cut out of HS all the time, dont think I have a fullday, but went to college b/c I was forced. Hated it too aside from the partying, but I went to an excellent business school in NY, got a AA in accounting, BA in Economics and started my MBA in Finance but at 22 i was done and wanted the real world and earn money. I do not use any of my degrees but still managed to pull in a 6figure job before I was 30 with a solid company that has been around for over 100yrs. Just wish they gave more than 2 weeks vacation time a year.,
I feel when your young like 18 to 20, you have more chances to go out and start something on your own and see if you can be successfully since you still have your parents in a way to financial help with a roof over your head and food if needed. Taking chances are what lifes all about or we never put a man on the moon, have a telephone or the internet…LOL
I totally agree…hence my statement here:
I know the response to this is that there are plenty of folks out there who never graduated high school and are rich…this is true.
I still think that if you say you graduated from University of Wherever, it gives you a step up over the guy who has a GED hanging on his wall. It doesn’t mean you can be just as succesful, it just means your gun is loaded with a more powerful bullet.
There is no replacement for charisma and the ability to sell, but college can refine that charisma and give you more tools and a broader way of thinking to make you a more well rounded saleman and investor.
The number of people who make it big with a degree are much higher than those who don’t. Can people make it without school? absolutely! but the ratio of those who succeed with it vs without it tells a story.
Besides, at 16/17 year old, it is easy think why go to school when I can make millions quick in real estate as if real estate is not a business model in it self. People don’t realize it is not for everyone, and not everyone becomes millionaire or even survive in it.
True Story: When I was 17 I dropped out of HS to go to work with a guy in St. Louis working construction. I saw the easy money which was alot to a 17 year old.
Looking back, I enjoyed the experience, but it could have really derailed my chances at college. I know see my ignorant reasons (I don’t need college or HS, I can make money w/o it) were rediculous. Where I am now with a great JOB is what will enable me to work RE with my wife until things are good enough where I don’t need to work. It took some finagling to get things back on track to finish HS and go to college. I am really glad I did.
Everyone wants to invest in things to make them money. Think about doing a little investing in yourself. It will pay huge dividends in your personal life and help you make better investment decisions with respect to investing in stocks or RE. Don’t sell yourself short.
Motivation is crucial for anything. As long as you keep that, you can do anything.
Sorry to anyone who has to endure more of my rantings…
~joshua
The number of people who make it big with a degree are much higher than those who don't. Can people make it without school? absolutely! but the ratio of those who succeed with it vs without it tells a story.
Any hard numbers to back that up? I’ve seen the statistics that having a higher education gradually increases your income, but those are jobs. “Making it big” is a little different. Just looking at the list on Forbes, more people have degrees than not. But how much of that degree is attributed to their success is questionable.
Contingency plans are always good, but not having the ability to back out (relying on a degree) makes you fight a lot harder. I believe a degree can hinder someone in business just as much as it would help someone else.
I think this is one of those arguments that the folks with a degree are going to argue one way and the folks w/o a degree will argue another way.
I don’t think a degree is “required” to be successful, but I think it helps. Its like training in the military. I take every opportunity for it that comes along, because I may never need what I learned, but if by chance I do need it, I will be glad I had it. Along the same lines, why wouldn’t you want to equip yourself with every possible “tool” to make yourself more successful.
Just my thoughts…I would have to say that he cases where having a degree actually hurt a person’s business sense are obscure and probably much more related to the person being a moron and has little to do with actually the degree unless the degree program sucked.
Common Sense is a requirement whether you have a degree or not…
Can’t we just all have a beer and get along… :beer
~joshua
Do to his age the original poster may have to wait on that…
The military won’t send you to accounting school to be a pilot. This is because they don’t need you to learn accounting to be successful at your job.
The “tools” I carry will be used in the job I do. I don’t carry an axe if I want to fix a car. I won’t carry a paint brush if I’m blowing up a bridge. That would be a waste of time and energy. Sure, maybe along the way I’ll find something I want to paint, but that would be an interference to my job. There is a reason they don’t send cooks to sniper school, and diesel engine mechanics to Jumpmaster school. However, you will get sent to SERE because it will help you be more successful at your job (hopefully it’s not in the winter). 
It would be nice if I were capable of learning everything about everything, but there is not enough time in my life and I don’t possess the brain cells to do so. Spending my days learning strange facts about George Washington is useless to creating a successful RE business. If I want a successful business, learning about my business is all that’s important.
He he,
Danny, I somewhat agree with your points, but not entirely.
I have been to every part of SERE save the resistance phase…please don’t remind me of what is coming. My brother completed USMC SERE in the winter…I guess ‘pole to hole’ was the only way they survived, especially after they took thier clothes…
Anyhow, I would still argue that knowing “useless” things as you describe them makes you a touch more well rounded and gives you a broader base of experience. This, in my opinion, makes you a better business man, because half of business is relating to people, getting them to trust you, and working the deal. Obviously you have to know how to work the deal in the first place, but a broader experience base gives you tools that you didn’t know would work when the situation arises, that is all I am saying.
I know the stock market much better than I did 2 years ago after taking a corporate accounting class. Directly related to stock trading? No. Did it give me a better understanding of how a company works and what the barrage of numbers under the ticker symbol mean? Yes. That is my only point. More education can never hurt.
Or the remote engineering mechanics class I had to take. It helps me look at a construction, framing problem and understand where the point loads are going to be and how to build something so it will with stand. Will experience teach you this? Sure. Will experience teach you mathematically and conceptually why? Maybe, maybe not.
Regardless, I dont think we will ever entirely agree on this one because I used to think college was worthless…now that I am on the other side, I see how it benefits me.
So…for those who are of age…or wear a uniform…beer time? :beer
~joshua
Joshua,
The best is yet to come for you in SERE. I think pilots go to level-C SERE (or whatever it’s called in the AF) like real men, so resistance should be loads of fun. One of the best schools I’ve been to, hands down, but I’d never want to repeat it.
I agree that learning is never “useless” and if you ever get called to play Jeopardy, some things will come in handy. When your learning about remote engineering mechanics, your not learning about business. It’s not bad to learn remote engineering mechanics, only in the sense that it’s wasting the time you’d be using to learn more pertinate subjects.
I’m sure they taught you in survival phase to study the indigenous flora and fauna before you go on a mission. You wouldn’t spend that preceding time studying German fauna and flora when your going to be flying over Nicaragua. Not that knowing the plants and animals of Germany is a bad thing, but not what you need to be studying at the moment. (tip- keep a pocket sized notebook of the good and bad flora and fauna for every region.)
I was the only NCO on my team without atleast a bachelors degree, so I’ve been ridiculed and had this debate more than once. It’s always been my opinion that it’s most important to learn what you NEED to know first. You can pick up random crap along the way but that should not be your priority.
P.S. I’m starting to get the feeling you have a drinking problem…
…and he’s going to be going thru survival school during the winter! It was bad enough when I went through in April. Shaking all night long is NOT fun! Of course, that was quite a few years ago. By now, they might have catered dinners - the world has really changed.
Mike
When, where, and why did you go to survival school, Mike?
From what I hear, they have catered dinners and drunk college girls in AF SERE. http://www.gosere.com/ The pictures make it look like it’s an outdoor adventure where families spend their vacation.
I remember sitting naked in a cage being sprayed with water, eating whatever was crawling under a log or rock and sucking the eyeballs out of a rabbits recently severed head.
Freakin’ zoomies! I had a rougher life at my son’s Boy Scout “wintered-over” camp!
This doesn’t even measure up to “Hell Day” at the Warrant Officer Entry Course (I laughed all day – I thought they were going to throw me out for laughing at them)…it was like working for my old man except the TAC Officers didn’t yell as much or as loud!
Keith
I remember camping outside in January at a Boy Scout camp, I think the high daytime temp that week was like 5*F. Most of the troop camped inside, me and 2 others stayed outside in a lean-to, good times!