Hello everyone!
My name is Chris and I am very new to the whole idea of real estate investing. I just recently found these forums while doing some research on real estate. I am 23 and I'm in school for residential construction management with an emphasis in basic residential construction. I'm making this post with the hopes that I can get some of you professionals to critique my career goals. I'd eventually like to primarily turn real estate for profit as a career, but I'm being very realistic about the whole process. I plan on getting out into the work field first for some experience and trying my first investment on the side instead of trying to come right out and make this a full time affair. If I do well, then hopefully it will lead to more success in the future with my investments. I understand that I will have to learn like everyone else as well and I'm fine with that. I was in school for civil engineering, but I aspired to do something with real estate and thought that I would benefit more from residential construction management. I also plan on trying to get my real estate license over the next few years as well. I want to know everything there possibly is to know about the 'business.' I don't want to be in the dark about ANYTHING! Will this help me a lot to have a real estate license or not? My goal is to try and learn every angle I possibly can! I know there is a lot of money to be made in this business, but I understand that it's not always going to be easy! I guess I'm really just looking for some reassurance in my career plans and maybe some tips from you guys for improvements as well! Thanks in advance!
Chris

Also, will having such a widespread background in being able to do some of the contracting work myself be a big plus when searching for lenders to partner with?

Chris,

I am 27 and have had my RE license for 7 years. It has been difacult to get established in real estate, but the best thing to do is to pick a direction and goals and pursue them with passion.
I knew that I wanted to get into real estate investing shortly after high school and looked down every road I could to learn more and find a way to get the money to invest. I would shadow investors and read lots of books. It took me a few years, but I bought my first house at 23. I bought a foreclosure that I was going to fix up while I lived in. Well, I still have this house, no longer live there and it is a drain on my wallet. (soon I will be finishing it to sell) Since then I have bought 4 other homes as investments and have sold 3 of them for a profit. The 4th home I still have and am working on. I have made good money doing so, but it has definatly been a learing experience.
The biggest challenge is $$$. Make sure you have enough money to be able to purchase the home and then have enough money to quickly fix up the home for resale. TIME IS MONEY in this business.
Read lots of books and find a good mentor! Ask lots of quetions too. Good Luck

Ohh yeah if you are not planning on selling real estate for a living I would not bother with the license. It will cause disclosure issues and might cause some liability issues on resale.

Great advice! I never thought of having a license in that sense. I also understand that time is money, especially in this field. The longer you have a property that isn't 'finished', the longer it isn't on the market which could really hurt you if you missed that 'targeted' buyer by a few days. I also understand that the costs of mortgage/insurance and depending on what kind of loan you have out will cost you money if you're sitting on a property for longer than expected. I guess the only way to remedy this would be to have a back-up plan, and another back-up plan for the back-up plan. I know there are a lot of things that you truly cannot learn from just from reading a book. I know that you will learn from experience on when to cut your losses and walk away while someone else may sit on a property for much longer in hopes of that 'big return' when in fact they're losing much more money than they would have if they would have just cut their losses from the beginning. Thanks a lot for the advice! Keep it coming guys!

The key to rehabbing is you make your profit when you BUY!

You have multiple exit strategies for the property.

A team of professional contractors can get the job done much faster than a one man show,TIME IS MONEY!

Think about it,you do things yourself to try to save money say 1,000 dollars.You end up screwing it up or the rehab looks not the best quality.Now it has to be redone and you just spent about 2 to 3 times the money you thought you would have saved in another mortgage,utilites,and redo expenses.

You will only buy about 1 to 2 out of every 10 properties you put offers on.If your conversion rates are much higher than that your profit margin is proabably to small and what you are pruchasing for is probably to high.

Thanks for the advice. I've been over to reiclub.com and I've downloaded plenty of audio books to replace my music! I'm learning a lot while searching for my 'niche.' I hadn't planned on rehabbing properties on my own. I understand full and well that time is money! Thanks for reiterating that though. Sometimes people get caught up in the 'DIY' notion to save a few bucks when in reality it has cost them their time, time that could have been spent recruiting more business. Can anyone recommend some free audio books to dl? I've been dl'ing the books from reiclub.com, but maybe there are some other sources that I have not found just yet! Thanks again guys. The advice is greatly appreciated and deeply considered.

its pretty easy
buy low
sell high
spend less money than you make