How i Would Get Started in Real Estate in 2024

You know if I were starting all over $2 billion worth of real estate ago and was buying my very first home and building my first portfolio all over again could I do it the same way in 2024 as I did it 20 years earlier.

Let's find out so there's definitely criticism that I get out there, you can't find off-market deals you can't find discounted homes you can't find homes for like $50 or $250,000 this Market is so crazy and to you I made this article and I'm going to going to start by saying you're wrong like just plain up simple get teachable for a moment let me be your Mentor let me show you what I did 20 years ago.

And let me show you how I'm still doing it today have some things changed actually no it's the exact same strategy so listen up school is in session this is really important when I got started in the game of Real Estate I had a mentor that basically said hey here's what you got to do you have one credit card you need two more because when we go to a bank for a loan we're going to want to show them at least two or three LS of credit also.

You've only been at your job for a year you need to be there for a second year so that they can see you have what's called a 2-year work history and finally you're going to have some kind of down payment now we're going to find some cheap home because listen you're a poor college kid man you don't make a lot of money we're probably going to do like that 3% down payment for you you probably got to save up5 or $10,000 in your bank account.

Well let me tell you what happened 14 months went by and essentially I got two other credit cards and I kept them paid off just use them for gas and and and groceries and kept them paid down.

The second thing I did is it was 14 months I stayed at that same job even though i' had thought of leaving I'm like I want to keep that 2 years in history and then my wife and I we worked our butt off we did not save $10,000 we didn't save $77,000 we barely scrimmed $5,000 and so that basically took an entire year to cause that make that happen.

And something really cool happened. I was driving home from work one day and I was like I don't know I have this funny feeling that said drive home a different way like take the circuitous paath and it was weird cuz I wasn't used to weather in Utah yet and it was May which you would think were in spring or summer like the weather's nice and it was like blue sky the sun was out there was no clouds but it was snowing sideways and like it was really weird cuz right when the snow started hitting my windshield.

I have this funny feeling to look left and there was a for sale by owner sign on this tiny little Bungalow and I'm like this is a sign from God I did a u-turn I pulled myself around I looked at the sign and it said for sale by owner purchase price $110,000 now.

I was definitely not an expert in real estate I was the opposite I wasn't even a novice like I knew like nothing about the game of Real Estate but I'll tell you that something happened I saw that 110,000 price tag and I was like I got a feeling from just having looked at a few other prices that that's really low.

Well long story short I ended up going to my mentor, he looked up the house and said this house is worth $150,000 if you can get it for $110,000 that's a great steal for you.

I want you to get it and so I basically made that my first home and there's something else kind of cool about it it had a basement apartment while I had three bedrooms one bathroom upstairs for me and my wife the basement had one bedroom and one bathroom and we rented it out for about 600 a month which covered my entire mortgage. 

So when I bought this house with my 3% down payment it was about $3,300 that came out of pocket and basically rented out the basement my wife and I lived upstairs in the bigger part of the house totally for free now I didn't know at the time that this is what is called house hacking but that's exactly what I was doing. 

A year later I went to the bank and said hey I've heard that because of the equity in this house I might be able to pull some of it out and the bank said hey you have at least $20,000 can give you on Atlant of credit I'm like how does that work they're like well took us two weeks we didn't pay any money they gave us what's called a HELOC a home equity lant of credit for just about $20,000.

I took that 20 grand I found a second house and I used it as the down payment on that property, now the cool thing is I didn't live in that home, it was a lot bigger newer nicer than mine but after I rented it out with a lease option the family gave me $3,000 non-refundable upfront.

I'll never forget receiving that money in my hand and being like whoa this is real money and then my rent on it I was collecting $1,600 a month but my mortgage was only ,000 which meant that I had an extra $600 left over so between living for free my first house and then getting paid $600 a month on my second house.

My wife and I actually started financially getting ahead and what really happened is that led to a strategy where I used the equity in that house to buy more and then people started saying you got something figured out can I give you some money for my 401k and we'll buy more real estate. 

That's basically how I got my start by the time I graduated college. I had 25 properties they were paying me about $112,500 a month. I learned some very important lessons when you get started in real estate or you want a house.

Hack That 3% down payment the same program that exists today is really important. I've also learned that there's other parts around the country where real estate has gone up in value so you can't invest in those places if you're young and dumb and got no money like you like I did with me and my wife when we got started you got to find something different.

But I developed some rules like number one always buy real estate below the median always buy it in a live condition and always buy it in a good location.

I ended up repeating that process having really really crazy success and check it out I wrote a book about it it's called The Straight Path to real estate wealth and it documents not just how I bought my first 25 homes but the next year how I went to 50 homes and then 100 homes and then hundreds of homes.

The bigger question is this still doable in today's Financial World? 

well let's talk about some things that have changed right now are there still 3% down payment programs yes but the national median when I got into real estate was right around $240 $250,000 guess what.

It is Nationwide right now it's $431,000 so we know that the average cost of real estate has gone up quite a bit Sal iies have gone up but not as much proportionally and so from that point of view definitely things look very very different but what would your game plan be or rather what would mine be if I was starting all over again.

Let me tell you some things that I would do number one if I were your Mentor I would say get three lines of credit, what do you do if you only have one credit card get two or three more that's exactly what I did then that's exactly what you should do to now number two you need two years of work history. 

So even if you were in college for four years got a job in your degree the banks will even count those four years and you don't even have to wait 2 years but the bottom line is when you wait at least 2 years you're now ready to qualify for a home and the third thing is you need a 3% down payment.

Now this is where it gets a little bit tricky 3% is more today than it was then right like you might need 10 or $15,000 so here's a couple things you might want to do different number one you might want to live with your parents and save some money right. 

I know it doesn't sound super sexy to your girlfriend when you're like I live with my parents but if it's a financial strategy we got gen zers doing that something Millennials weren't willing to and now they're getting into real estate deals.

Sooner their first property sooner than Millennials were also work a side hustle right have a side gig like do something on the side you might even become full-blown entrepreneur like me or maybe you'll get your realtor's license or maybe you want to buy a franchise like you developing some kind of side hustle. 

Number one it's financially empowering to say well I don't just rely on my W2 but it also can help you save money more aggressively, now we're going into 2024 and I want you to take a look at the home prices and understand that you still have exceptions.

There's a lot of Jen ears that are like we moved to Memphis Tennessee, why do we do that ?

because it's a market right now where the average purchase price is still closer to $180 to $220,000 in fact check this out eyes on screen. I've got a $150,000 actual house, it's a three-bedroom two bath this is livable condition listen it's dated you can tell by looking at it that it's old yeah it's been cleaned up yeah it's nice but that's $150,000 house that's no different than what I was buying and when people are like yeah but you got, a you got a discount you can't do that these day and ages I have a total separate company called property and you know what it does Nationwide.

It finds massively deeply discounted properties where it's very common to find a home 20 30 or 40 or 50% blow market, so listen when there's people out there like yeah times were are different now than they were then you're not wrong but it's not really that different it's not deals and they don't invest in real estate they leave them for guys like you and I that are called The Believers and guys this is no different today than it was 20 years ago. 

I was a Believer then and I lived in a world where people like you can't find discounted deals and you can't do this and you can't do that guess what I did it I done it 6500 times. 

I'm telling you it's doable is it a little different yeah our home's a little more expensive yeah do do you need to save a little bit more money yeah you got to be more intentional giving you some strategies on how you can do that the reality is it's out there and it's available for the Believers so I want to ask you a very important question right now are you a Believer? 

Do you want to make millions of dollars in real estate?

Would you like to financially get ahead if you're saying yes to all of those things, then what I want to offer you is a free game plan.

Here's exactly what you would do so if you got money in a 401k he'd do this if you have money in an IRA do that if you're literally broke as a joke and got no money and bad credit. 

When I give you my perspective my million-dollar game plan cuz I promise you this.

if I worked with you I could make you a multi-millionaire. I don't I don't care how much money you do or don't have I don't care if you have good or bad credit I don't care if you have a job or no job I don't care about any of that.

All I care about is whether you're a Believer and if you got the drive and here's how you show me.

Yeah if you want to know how I do that it's called wholesaling it's very real it's very exciting and it's all coming up next right here everything falls apart. 

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