Five Ways to Get Started Investing in Real Estate

I’ve been investing in real estate for over 7 years. Real estate changes so often and so fast that even now after doing this for 7 years I find myself constantly evaluating my business and how I’m operating it on a daily basis. Consider this- if you were just dropped in a city anywhere in the nation, what would you do to start you real estate investing business? There’s five things I would start with.

1. Bandit Signs

The first is building your team. Go out and drive around neighborhoods, picking the ones you’d like to invest in. When looking through neighborhoods, you’ll find bandit signs, those coroplast signs pasted on telephone poles or on stakes in people’s yards that say “we buy houses.” Call the numbers on these signs. These guys that say “we buy houses” are usually wholesalers who are selling property, so go out and start networking with them. Don’t look at these guys as competitors, but as team mates in the real estate game. They’ll have a list of buyers who you can wholesale property to or they’ll start sending you deals, and now you’re looking at the pipe line of properties moving around your city. So begin by calling the numbers on bandit signs, and finding guys who have deals.

2. Internet

Number two is Craigslist- use the internet. Everybody is putting property on the internet and selling houses- be it franchises or larger REI groups. Use sites like Craiglist, to find deals. Call those people just like you called the guys on the bandit signs. Just say “I’m brand new to the city, and I’d like to start buying or wholesaling property.”

3. Title Companies

Three, and this is kind of a ninja trick, is going to a title company. As you may know, title companies see everything. They see where all the invoices come from and who all the fees go out to. They know everyone who’s making money in real estate. Network with closers at title companies because they’ll tell you who is doing deals, and who’s moving property. From there you can get a list, so you can call and email those people. Then, you just start networking, and building your team.

4. REI Groups

Fourthly go to REI groups- you can go online to find a national REIA group. Start attending their events and rubbing elbows. A lot of times the wholesalers or property sellers from those bandit signs are going to be at these REI groups. Now you can put a face to a name and start building a rapport with these guys, these teammates of yours.

5. Hard Money Lenders

Your fifth resource will be hard money lenders. You may not want or need to borrow money from them, but these guys are loaning money on a daily basis to investors who buy property with equity in them. Often, things happen and they have to foreclose on these investors. Hard money lenders need to move their money to get these deals off their hands. So they’re going to be willing to sell these properties at a discount, to get them off their books in order loan money again. Because of this, they’re a good way to find property and network with other people who know about the market.

No matter what city you’re in, you can use these five resources to build your team, and get started investing in real estate.