Since I am so bad at investing and knowing what is a good deal or not, maybe
some of you could tell me what steps you took when first investing?
Figure out why you want to invest in real estate. Know the area you want to invest in. Do you want to be a landlord or a house flipper. There are drastice differences. There are many other ways to invest in real estate. Study up on the subject and make sure you make money the day you buy a property. First and foremost have a plan, if you have money to invest you are better off tryint o invest without it or as little of it as you can because anyone that has money to burn can buy a property. The money will soon be eaten up if you dont buy it right. Its much harder to buy it, but much easier to buy it “right” when you use as little money as you can. Once you get to know how to buy it right then you can put more and more money into the properties you buy to achieve a higher cash flow or profit. Good luck. read up on this forum you can learn just about anything here. There are many, many knowledgable people.
Read, read some more, then read some more…rinse and repeat! Select a target area and then learn it cold! If a prooperty comes up for sale, you should know immediately whether or not it’s a good value…
Keith
This is the key. All real estate is local. You have to know what works where you are. The goal of real estate investing is not about the money it is about the lifestyle. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Find sombody in your town that is living the life you want to live using his real estate and do what they do, just like they do it. If that person has the time with his family, the health the peace of mind, etc. Then do just what they do. If there is a guy that make a million dollars a month off his real estate but he is always upset and cussing his 6th wife everyday because of the stress and you want to look at properties and make financial deals and be at home with your family by supper time everyday, then you don’t want to be like him. If you see a guy that is always doing a better deal trying to build a bigger development and you like working with your hands and you want to rehab one house at a time and really don’t like the feeling of being at your CPA’s office doing financial projections, don’t do like him.
You have some homework to do. Find out where you want to go, because if you don’t know where you are going then you never know if you are on track or not.