You don’t have to know everything to get started

I had a chance to mentor a couple of friends that were interested in real estate. They took me out to lunch and wanted to ask a few questions and gain some insight. As they started asking questions I realized how far I have come in my very short investing career. I answered their questions and directed them to some decent books and websites. In the end, I just told them, “Look you are going to learn more than you could imagine after you buy that first property. Take the leap, you will learn way more than you can sitting here with me for an hour at Dickies BBQ.”

Many of the Real Estate books that I have read talk about developing your team. You need a good agent, a good real estate attorney, a good tax man, contractors, etc. Valerie and I got started with an inherited property. Meaning we had a vacant house that had been neglected for over 20 years. So I can confirm that you really don’t need to know everything or have a team in place to get started. We did not know one contractor. We had never been a landlord in our lives. We have never bought a single course or paid for a single seminar.

The one thing we did have is the passion and willingness to get in there and roll up our sleeves. We were making mistakes that I laugh about now. We still make mistakes all the time, but we continue to learn and improve our business. Investing and being a successful landlord is not about what you learned in school, from some seminar, or from a book. It’s about the wisdom you’ve earned in the trenches.