How I Started Investing In Real Estate When I was 18.

Getting started in real estate with little or no money can be extremely difficult. Getting started with no money, no experience, and only being 18 years old might seem impossible. However, it is not. I am going to spend the next several minutes telling you how I accomplished this task just five years ago. I know what you are thinking and the answer is YES, I am 23 years old.

I have spent the past five years investing in real estate full time. I am in business with a long time friend from elementary school who is also 23 years old. Since we started, we have completed over fifty different types of real estate transactions.

Okay, now that you know a little about me I will move right in to telling you how I started with no money and no experience. It all started when I was working at a sporting goods store right out of high school. I was working for eight dollars per hour and no guidance or future to look forward to. After thinking about how poor the quality of my job was I decided to go to the book store across the street on my lunch break. Browsing around the business section I stumbled upon a couple of real estate books that caught my eye. I sat down with one of them and started reading. I was immediately fascinated by the different types of strategies associated with starting with “no money down.”

After learning a bit about getting started I knew it was something I could do, in fact, something anybody could do. After reading the remaining of the book a week later I went into work at the sporting goods store with a big smile on my face. I bet you can’t guess why? I walked in that day and made sure it would be the last time I ever stepped foot into that place. I quit right there on the spot and decided I was going to start a career in real estate investing.

For the next three months I would spend eight hours a day staying up until four a.m. studying and researching real estate investing. I searched the internet and read every book I could find to gain more knowledge. Even after reading material for hundreds of hours I still had more questions that needed to be answered. It seemed that nobody was willing to give out the specifics. The only way to learn was going to be to jump in and start making mistakes.

I started with simple “bandit signs” and knew that the best option would be to wholesale. I read a little bit about this strategy through several real estate books and forums. My signs were out and my phone started ringing. I came across my first deal about three weeks after I started advertising. I came across a property that a woman just wanted to get rid of. I made her a “low ball” offer and to my surprise she accepted it. Now, extremely nervous about figuring out how I was going to buy it or find a buyer I decided to start making some phone calls. I made some flyers and immediately brought them to a local real estate investor’s meeting. I wrote on the flyers, “For sale - house in need of minor repairs. Worth 180k after repairs, will sell for 105k.” I had several people call and look at the property from this ad. Before I knew it I had somebody who was willing to pay 95k for a property I had under contract for 70k. One month later I closed my first wholesale deal for 22k in profit.

It was that very moment when I realized that I would be doing this for the rest of my life and how profitable it would be. With a few months of research and a little self motivation I closed my first deal and made two years of income in three months. That year I went on to make over $200,000 in profit and have continued to grow a business that makes me financially free and successful today.


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