I get asked this question a lot: “How do I get started in real estate investing?” The truth is, there are a lot of different options available to get your career in real estate investing started, and it all really depends where you are in your life. Someone who is married with three kids and a mortgage should probably get started differently than someone who is single with no other commitments.

Here are three ideas for you to consider:

Get your real estate license – Obtaining your real estate license can be a great kickoff to your real estate investing career. That’s the path I chose because it fit into my schedule and life choices at the time. At the very least, being a licensed agent can empower you to do some things you might not have been able to do otherwise. Did you just drive by a vacant foreclosure that grabbed your attention because the grass was up to your shoulders!? As a licensed agent, you can call the number on the real estate sign out front and set up a showing for yourself right then and there! For me, I was finding tons of properties online that I was curious about in the beginning stages of my career. I quickly found that many of them were already sold or weren’t even going to be for sale, but for the ones that WERE available, the difference between having my license and not having my license was huge. I was not a serious buyer at the time so I certainly didn’t want to waste an agent’s time showing me properties (rule #1 of working with agents is DON’T WASTE THEIR TIME!). Option B was to trespass and peek through windows. But I’m too chicken $h!t to do things like that (often). So…that left me with C) GET YOUR REAL ESTATE LICENSE! Having my license was great…I could set up showings at vacant houses and waste all of my own time there dreaming about what walls I would knock out! If you want to get your real estate license but aren’t sure where to do it, try contacting a local Board of Realtors. Be prepared that it’s going to cost you several hundred dollars by the time you’re done taking the prep course and exam.

Attend a local real estate investors association meeting – Most states have a group of local real estate investors and real estate investor wannabes who meet on a monthly basis to discuss all things real-estate-investory. These associations can be a great way to network and learn how to talk about real estate investing even when you don’t know how to talk about real estate investing. I attended more than a few CTREIA meetings in the early stages of my career, and while I do not currently attend the meetings I still think it was a great confidence builder and a great way to focus my brain on my new found passion of house flipping. (FYI as you become a more experienced investor, you will find that your networking mostly occurs at a bar with beer involved rather than formal meetings that you pay to attend!)

Lend money to other investors – So you want to be an investor? Why not learn from someone who is already doing it? Sounds a little weird, but most busy rehabbers are always looking for new sources of private money. If you’ve got a few bucks hidden under your mattress, sitting in a bank account earning crap for interest, in a self directed IRA, or in a home equity line of credit, you can lend it to someone who is flipping, track the project from beginning to end, and ask tons of how-to questions about flipping along the way, all while earning a decent interest rate! Most investors are offering between 8-12% on short term loans, so you could stand to make some decent coin on your dollar just by lending it to someone else to use for a few months. A word of caution to protect myself here: Obviously you could lose some or all of your money if you lend it to someone who isn’t legit. Do your due diligence, know who you’re working with, make sure you are being provided with legal documents that your attorney can review with you, and if something sounds fishy it probably is!

I could go on to make a much longer list of things you could do to get started in your investing career, but DO SOMETHING!

Do you have other ideas for ways people can get started in real estate investing? Send me a comment!