Where to start...

Hello,

I’m a first time poster, so I’ll give a slight background.

I’m 24, and I own a house in MA. I bought it in May (ranch, basement, blah blah blah)

But that’s not what brings me here…

In about ten months, I’m inheriting a large sum of money. It’s in funds, some stocks, etc. Anything can be liquidated at my request in June. Without getting into specifics about what I’m getting, it’s in the mid six figures

While my genius sisters decided this money should be kept in money markets and mutual funds, all bringing in roughly 2% a year, I want to learn as much about everything and be comfortable with moving it around the second I can.

I’m not gonna go ask you about stocks, but one of the things I want to know is, what do you guys think I should do in the next ten months to set myself up so I’m ready to go in June. What books/e-books/courses should I invest in? I want to do something with real estate, and I waht to know where to start.

Thanks.

Matt

Matt, one of the dangers you face is having a pocket full of money without the know how or experience to go with it. That said, my advice is to tread slowly at first. There will be no shortage of experts who come along and will know exactly what you should do. Uh huh. :rolleyes Be polite, but hold onto your wallet.
My two cents: if you’ve got the cash you can be a buyer of properties at .50 on the dollar these days. Then set up Rent To Own’s on them and you’ll do fine.
Good luck!

Matt,

If you are serious about getting into real estate, then I would start by reading a LOT of posts from this site and joining your local REIA (real estate investors association). You are in a very risky position, inheriting a bunch of money. YOUR first priority should be NOT TO LOSE IT! Most people that get a winfall lose it very quickly. If you are going to get into this business, read a lot of books and be very careful about spending a lot of money on expensive courses, bootcamps, and mentoring. You will find a lot of books that you can read for free at your library and I also highly recommend the Carleton Sheets course as an excellent beginner’s course. Get to know the SUCCESSFUL investors at your local REIA and learn as much from them as you can. When you know what you want to do, then study that specific area and write a short business plan.

You’ve got a great advantage in starting with a significant amount of money, but if you aren’t careful, you could lose it all in no time.

Good Luck,

Mike

I agree with propertymanager on this one.

When I first started out I burned through a lot of cash unnecessarily because it was there to burn through.

Your first priority is to learn how to manage money. If real estate is the path you want to take, then follow property manager’s advice as well as buy a couple of courses off ebay or whatever and start learning.

It is so easy to write a check a buy an apartment building, write another check to contractors to fix everything up, write a bunch of more checks and then realize you just burned through a huge chunk of your cash because you were an amateur. And then you realize the seminar you just went to just costed you more than any seminar a guru would charge.

In the ten months before you get your money I would join your local REI CLub and start making contacts with the real estate and lending industry. Yeah, you’ll have a ton of cash, but you should use your cash as seed money, still relying on Other People’s Money (OPM) whenever Possible. Don’t feel that simply a load of cash gets dumped on you that it has to be invested right away.

I would start out simply getting with some buyers and learning how to birddog. This will make it so you are going beyond theoretical and getting actual practice finding deals and learning how to structure deals from the buyers you work with. You’ll see how they work and why they consider some deals profitable while most deals are not.

I would continue to do that even when I got the money, doing the old mantra:

Do the deals you can do.

Wholesale the deals you don’t have the time, resources or expertise for.

Refer the ones to other buyers that aren’t the ones you want to bother with - but could be a good deal for another buyer.

Do it this way, and you’ll gain practical knowledge as well as some income and confidence so when the money is on hand you will know the best way to use it.

You could start investing in real estate but it sounds like you would be new at that?

Maybe you should do a little Hard Money lending. Lend only up to 65%, be picky, require A+ credit, charge 8 pts up front and lend at 14%.

You would quickly make A LOT of money, plus the loans only last 6months.

Hi all,

I guess this will be more of an umbrella reply.

I know I can lose it all if not invested right. Thats what I wanted your insight on. I have the luxury of knowing I am getting money, and I have the luxury of having ten months to figure out the right way to invest it.

Matt

I would do hard money. You’ll make more with less effort than trying to find deals or rent property in state like MA.