where to start

I am a 20 year old , living at home rent free. Im currently grossing 70k a yr. I want to start investing money and not sure what road to take? thinking about buying income property. Can someone please advise how I Should get started?

I’ve been investing since 1991 and the best (and most consistent) deals for me have been mobile homes; more specifically, financing them. I’ve don’t hundreds of deals and a typical one would look like this:

Buy a cheap home for $3,000, then resell it ‘with terms’ for $500 down and $200/month for 5 years. That leaves $2500 in the deal with a $2400 cash flow.

The only caution would be to know the terms of reselling on the land where the home is located (ie; park rules and lot rent). After years of dealing with that, I decided to buy my own land / mobile home park and fill up my own lots, which allowed me to add income for the dirt.

You will not get hurt investing in small denominations like this type requires. If you ever need money, just resell note to someone in their IRA or pension at a high yield like 15% or 18%. If you create the note at 95% and sell for 18%, you are making a nice profit.

Even if you make a mistake and pay too much, you will still make more yield than most other types of real estate investments. For example, if you pay $6k for a home and sell with same terms of $500 down and $200/month for 5 years, that leaves $5500 in he deal and 2400 cash flow…that is just under 50%…where else can you make that type of return on such a small investment?!!

Hope this helps.

RC

Rocko is not providing enough details.

For all we know, he could be living in a big city (and based on his income/age ratio, most likely) where $3000 will only get you a door frame.

what do you see yourself doing?

do you see yourself managing tenants and fixing toilets for cash flow?
do you see yourself managing rehabbers and contractors?

it all depends on how active you want to be in the business. if you are making 70k/y then most likely you have a full time job and don’t have the time to manage contractors or tenants…

what do you actually want out of real estate? go from there…

there are other ways of making passive income without consuming much time or energy…

Fredd is right. Not enough info for us to give you any real advice.

Good place to start is going to real estate school. Get your AB license. This will give you access to your mls system and help you find property easier. Most investors just get to know a good realtor who doesn’t mind giving them access to it, however. I just graduated myself and it was a good experience. You learn a ton about the law and you learn it from an agents prospective. You will learn how to better market your inventory to sell quicker and to the right clientele.

The biggest thing from going through school was getting to know a lot of good contacts, most cases all real estate company’s are in and out of the school all the time doing continuing education and just socializing. Its a good way to meet brokers, other agents and i actually met a few good contractors through my class who just wanted to get a real estate license because they seen the money the investors that was using them make so they decided they wanted a piece of it.

You will learn a lot about it, however, you wont learn much at all from an investment standpoint. It is a great experience non the less. Its only 2 weeks long at most schools and very easy hours, and easy class.

With your license you can become a independent contractor with just about any company out there and work as an agent. You want to get your feet wet and see how the insides work with real estate this is a good way to do it, and on the side when your not being an agent you can start stacking money and with the contacts you have made through it you will have everything you need to procure your first property. What you do with it just depends on the house. Some deals are just simply best wholesaled, some self rehabbed, or some rented. Just depends on the outlines of everything. You will mostly know what to do when the time comes.

Good luck!! :biggrin

get an inexpensive 3 bedroom single family or duplex in a safe neighborhood and made sure it cash flows just a ton. If it was a $75k house and cash flowed $750 to $1000 per month or something amazing that would be great. Start off slow and learn the ropes and see how it works for you.

Buy a 150 Unit Apartment Complex! Right out of the gate.

But really, most people start as a Birddog. And progress their way through the Real Estate Ladder. If you look at the list of the Forums to the Left its show the ladder pretty well:

Birddog->Wholesaler->Foreclosures->Rehabbing->Landlording->Commercial