Learn Real Estate Investing Before Putting Up Your Money
Whether the real estate market is booming or falling, it always presents profit opportunities for savvy investors. However, most of us don't want to become savvy by losing real money, so we'd like to educate ouselves prior to actually beginning any involvement. If you want to learn real estate investing, you have a number of different options. First of all, you can learn from books. There are thousands of real estate books on the market. Some are general, wherein you can learn about making money with many different types of real estate, and some focus on one type of property, such as single family homes or duplexes, or one specific technique, such as no money down or house flipping. Of course, just like any other investment, real estate is subject to hyped up claims of potential profits, so don't depend on one book for your entire real estate education.
When it comes to books targeted specifically towards the process of buying, renovating, and reselling residential properties usually referred to as flipping, there are two books we've reviewed and can recommend. Flipping Confidential is written by Kirsten Kemp, the host of TLC cable network's show Property Ladder. Flipping Houses For Dummies upholds the long tradition of the series of Dummies books from Wiley Publishing, and is written by Ralph R. Roberts, a real estate investor with more than thirty years experience.
You also can gain a great deal of insight by doing just what you're doing now - surfing the web. There are many sites that feature archives of articles related to real estate investing. Just do a search for "real estate articles" or "real estate training" or some such phrase. However, as with anything on the web, it will pay to understand the motivation of the creator of the website. If it's just to provide information like we are attempting to do with this site, then you can assume the author is unbiased (but not necessarily correct). However, if the ultimate goal of the site is to sell you something, be it a book, e-course, membership site subscription, whatever, then it's prudent to be sure that you do research in other places to try and get an idea of whether or not their techniques are viable.
Another possiblility is a real estate investment club. These clubs exist in many places around the US. If the club is properly structured, it can be a very valuable way to learn real estate investing. You can learn from more experienced individuals, the club will frequently bring in very informed speakers to give presentations, and the networking aspect can allow one to meet people such as mortgage brokers, contractors, real estate agents, and of course other investors. Just be aware that there are clubs that are merely a way for the founding person or company to push their product or that of a real estate guru who's handsomely remunerating them. Once again, do your research before committing any time or money.
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