who do you employ in the beginning

General Real Estate Investing
1

I understand one needs experts in areas of tax, law, real estate, title, escrow, loan origination, property management and so on… That’s a handful, or two. Do any overlap? Which is the most efficient path into all that? Who do I employ to take care of most of the knowledge necessary handle a rei business? Who’s most important, knows lost about other areas and even serves several purposes? I’m just trying to narrow down my initial path in searching for guidance.

And this doesn’t include the rehab part. That would probably be a separate thread. Like, is hiring my property inspector to help me make rehab estimates a good idea or just leave him to his specialty(when you don’t know many in construction). Or do most investors use ball park figures based on “experience” and I should just continue patching my house up to get familiar with home repair costs?

2

These are great questions.

You’ve offered some assumptions here that may not apply to you.

First, there’s various kinds of ways to ‘invest’ in real estate.

Which way are you intending? For cash flow? To buy and hold for equity build up? Fast cash flips? Rehabbing and flipping?

And then there’s a boatload of broke-style entry level ‘investing’ strategies, such as lease/optioning, bird-dogging, and wholesale contract assigning.

Each of these has a different set of protocols and training available.

Like any profitable profession or endeavor, training is required.

Even a real estate agent has to take a class and pass some tests. Why? Because there’s a way to sell real estate and a way to starve.

That’s not to say, you can’t finally learn without studying any training, but nobody wants to do business with someone who doesn’t already know how the ball bounces (or appears to know).

Which brings me to quote Tom Yevsikov whom recently wrote, “You don’t have to be smart to make a bunch of money [in real estate]… Hell, I know plenty of retards and rectal wizards, that are killing it in terms of $$$.”

So do I.

Meantime, I say the first thing to do is to determine whether you are going to “merchandise” real estate, or “invest” in it. These aren’t the same things.

RE agents, wholesalers, rehabbers, bird-dogs, and anyone who flips property, would be considered a merchandiser.

Otherwise, anyone who maintains an interest in a property for a period of time, as either an Optionee, or as a Landlord, he would be considered an investor.

Once you’ve made up your mind which way you want to go, why not ask any of us what training we would recommend? Buy the recommended training, and then come back here and let us help you fill in the blanks.

This website has a BUNCH of proven resources for just about any type of merchandising or investing you could imagine.

Start there.

All that said, our family started buying up cheap houses in Sacramento, without spending one dime on training. We didn’t even buy a book that explained the ins and outs of investing in single family houses.

We acted as our own ‘inspector’, plumber, electrician, appraiser, painter, estimator, prospector, negotiator, loan originator, rehabber, landscaper, designer, and remodeler.

Let me say, that approach is reserved for the broke, and for rectal wizards and retards, if I may say so myself.

3

Thanks for the response. And I’m pretty sure I want to flip first as I need to make cash. I consistently read up on REI but I hang to do things to understand them and this business relies a lot on a good sense of the numbers amongst other things, and networking with key people and when you’re at level zero it’s a tad difficult to get a good sense of direction. But okay, there will be a “settlement agent” involved I gather. Would that be say a title company? Title/escrow?? Or could myself and a seller do it over the top of a car at a convenient store tho absolutely shouldn’t? Is a “loan originator” necessary, and if possible how would you do their job correctly? Will I need a lawyer to write up the contract? Don’t they charge a couple hundred/hr? A lot of questions to be answered before I feel right asking a stranger ‘trust me’ in all this[new stuff].

4

There are so many ways to skin this cat, that anything I say after this, will have several exceptions.

However, let me take another stab at this.

Find a deal. What you have to do, to accomplish ‘that’ is what’s necessary to start. Nothing else is “necessary.”

Once you’ve got a deal, it’s downhill from there.

Without a deal, finding ‘settlement agents,’ appraisers, or anyone else, is just a distraction, or getting the cart before the horse.

  • Learn what a deal is.
  • Look for a deal.
  • Find the deal.
  • Lock up the deal.
  • Do your due diligence on the deal.
  • Advertise for a buyer of your deal.
  • Assign your deal.
  • Get paid on the deal.
  • Rinse and repeat for another deal.

It’s first about finding a deal, and not even about paperwork, or professionals, or anything.

Once you’ve got the deal, then you can just pull out your yellow note pad, and write up what you and the seller agree to, get everyone’s signatures at the bottom, and then scramble to find the proper paperwork and professionals to help you open and close escrow.

Seriously. If you don’t want/can’t spend the money to learn a system, then the fastest way to learn, is to just start looking for deals. Every good question and answer will emerge from that effort alone.

5

True, there are many ways to deal with this situation, first and fore most thing is to find what is the effect deal, from where it is, look up all the possibilities that you will provide to this deal and accordance to this give some popularity to that.

6

Simply said, the most important things first. Take a birds eye view of your situation and then look at whats needed. Once you have a list prioritize it, keeping in mind that you want cash in your pocket asap. You will have your answers.
It all depends on the situation you are in. You may be looking for the deal first or you may already be having a deal with you.