How To Get Started As A Real Estate Investor

Getting started in real estate investing is truly the hardest part. It's confusing, overwhelming and you have no idea who to trust.  It’s hard because you haven’t done it before.  Everything is harder when it’s your first time.  When I first started out I was looking for exact first steps of what to do in order to get started. So I'm going to break that down for you today.

Education

Real estate investing a massive industry and there's so much information out there, but you have to just get started somewhere. But education is step number one. There is SO much free information out there.  Check out the numerous youtube channels and blogs or get a library card and take out real estate investing books for free!

Find Mentors

Finding two or three mentors that you can follow and listen to that are putting up regular content and that you trust and can really learn from.  After checking out all of that free content you should be able to narrow down your favourites and become part of their email list or community in whatever way they have that set up.  

Networking

Networking is so important it probably should be number one, it's the most vital thing that you can do, especially when you're first starting out in your real estate investing career because you will make so many connections and you'll be part of a community where you can bounce questions off other investors and get info on off market deals, insider tips, and it really is such a great way to meet people and start building your real estate team. It's one of the best ways for a newbie to get started.

If you're just starting out networking, you can join an offline meetup group. Go to meetup.com you can look up groups in your area for real estate investors, I highly recommend that you do this.

Speak To A Financing Specialist

At this point you've done some research, you've done some networking, but you really need to know how much you can afford, what your financial situation is, what your credit situation is. And the best way to do it is get hooked up with a professional that knows what they're doing and has experience with real estate investing. They'll be able to go over all the numbers with you.  You will be go over the different ways to finance a property and really look at your specific situation and help you know exactly what you need to do next in order to fund your real estate properties.

Decide On Location And Hire A Realtor

Hiring a realtor in my own personal investing career was so essential. I was a real estate agent, but I was so new and I was also working in Toronto as a commercial real estate agent. So it wasn't in the area I wanted to invest, and it wasn't the type of real estate that I wanted to invest in. So I found a real estate agent in the city that I want to invest in that specialized in the type of investment that I wanted to invest in, which was student housing. Once I found somebody that I could trust that had their own real estate investments and had been in the industry for a while, it must have been maybe two months until I bought my first investment property. Maybe even one month, I don't remember specifically, but I know once I got the ball rolling and hired a real estate agent that was really what got everything off the ground.

So, if you haven't done that yet, start doing your research on which location you want to invest in (check out my blog post on this exact topic here) and then start looking for real estate agents that are specializing in investing in that area. That is really what's going to take you from the education portion straight to the action portion of your investing journey.

No matter how much you have researched, and studied real estate investing nothing is going to beat out taking action and taking the necessary steps to buy your first investment property.  

I put together a free checklist below of all the steps that you need to get started in your real estate investing journey.