Step-by-step actions to take getting started

Before you make a purchase, How to Get Started in Real Estate will show you how to set financial goals, select the strategy that best matches you, get educated correctly, and then help you buy your first property, or your next property. Find out if you need a mentor and if so, how to find one who does not charge you anything. Practical, ethical, real-world advice. The antidote to the unscrupulous gurus who prey on beginners in order to take advantage of their ignorance of the field.

Not just for beginners

When I suggest this book, many customers tell me, “Oh, I’m not a beginner. I already own some properties.” I still recommend the book because most experienced investors did not begin correctly. How to Get Started in Real Estate Investment enables them to tie up loose ends they left when they started and to get onto the optimum track if, as is common, they began in a less-than-optimal way. Indeed, the longer they delay reading How to Get Started In Real Estate Investment, the greater the probability that they are compounding mistakes they made at the beginning of their investment careers.

• Table of Contents
• Reader comments
• Front Matter (Copyright date, acknowledgements, etc.)
• News Release
• Index
• John T. Reed’s real estate investment background
• What How to Get Started in Real Estate Investment will NOT tell you

Changes to How to Get Started in Real Estate Investment

Chapters include setting your goals, selecting your strategy, acquiring real estate knowledge, the correct way to get a mentor, getting a job in real estate, and finally, making your first purchase.

Setting your goals

Throughout the book, I list ACTION steps you should take. I don't want this book to be another reason for investors to procrastinate. Part of the process is setting goals that you thought through logically. Many investors, including myself, start by making goals based on impressive round numbers.

"I had several financial goals when I was in my early twenties. One was to have a five-million-dollar net worth. Another was to own 100 residential units. In pursuit of those goals, I became a millionaire, then a former millionaire."

Why 100 units? Why $5 million? You should decide on a number because it makes sense, not because of how impressive it sounds. You should make a shopping list of everything you want to be able to buy in your life, add it up, and that's your goal.

Selecting your strategy

Real estate investment is a broad topic, with many sub-topics that often differ greatly from each other. There's residential, office, retails, industrial, agricultural, recreation, raw land, schools, hospitals, airports, parking lots and garages, churches, etc. As a general rule, you must pick one of them. Each is so specialized that you would find it extremely difficult to be expert in more than one.

On top of that, each of these topics varies greatly based on different factors. Don't think you can profit buying a golf course in New York because you did very well with golf courses in Arizona. And climate is just one factor. Learn about the other factors in Chapter 2.

Acquiring real estate knowledge

Once you pick a strategy to focus on, you can start acquiring the expertise necessary to succeed using that strategy. How to Get Started in Real Estate Investment tells you where to go to get the specific information for your strategies and other techniques to help you, including where not to get information.

You also need to understand general real estate law as well as various related topics like finance.

Mentors

A mentor is a more experienced, usually older friend who gives you free advice and watches out for you. Notice my emphasis on the word FREE. See my chapter on Mentors for more.

Getting a job in real estate

An excellent way to learn about real estate is to get a job working in real estate. Crazy, I know, but if you're a medical doctor, you probably cannot afford to quit your practice to become a title-company officer. When I was in the Army, I devised a six-year plan of working to learn. For the first two years, I was going to work as a house real estate salesman. Then I was going to work two years as a property manager. Then I was going to work two years as a mortgage loan officer. Looking back on it, I had the right basic idea, but the details of my plan were flawed. (See Chapter 5)

Your first purchase

So after setting specific goals, selecting a strategy, acquiring knowledge on that strategy, maybe talking extensively to a mentor, and maybe working in real estate, you are now prepared to buy a property. The final chapter of How to Get Started in Real Estate Investment talks about how I made my first purchase, including the mistakes you should not repeat.

I also recommend that you get my Checklists for Buying Rental Houses and Apartment Buildings book before you start looking at properties for your first purchase. It is like a pilot’s preflight checklist and just as no competent pilot would take off without going over his pre-flight checklist, no building buyer should buy without this book. One reader said if had not used this book, he would have overlooked a $15,000 credit to him at closing for rents paid earlier in the month but not yet used up! And I call my Best Practices for the Intelligent Real Estate Investor an “advanced fundamentals” book because it contains stuff beginners need to know but is probably more than beginners can easily digest.

When you buy 2 books at the same time, you save $2.55 on shipping to U.S. addresses. Shipping is free if you buy 3 or more books at the same time.

“Beginnings are delicate things,” said Frank Herbert in his novel Dune. It is extremely important to get off on the right foot and it’s not too late if you already started.

62 pages, 8 1/2 x 11 paperback, $29.95

Not available in traditional or online book stores