How I Got Started with Real Estate Investing

My start into Real Estate, and more specifically Real Estate Investing, came in a much similar way to how I got started with Online Marketing and Website Development…..on a social media site of all things.

It was March 2014 that the wheels began turning. My website design busines (6StarMedia) was on life support. I didn’t have any major projects on the go, but only a few minor jobs like Facebook pages and some SEO. I decided that I needed to push and get my name and my business out there to more people. I started heavily marketing myself on LinkedIn by completing my profile in full (essential BTW) and becomming a LION, or LinkedIn Open Networker. The basic principle is that you agree to accept any connection and never mark a person as spam. Through this, I gain connections very quickly and was over 5000 before I knew it. I would send a nice thank you note to each person and include a blurb about my business as well as all my social profiles. I didn’t get many responses back, and the ones I did get back were just people doing the same thing I was doing! There was only one person that peaked my interest.

His name was Jonathan, and he asked me if i’ve ever considered Real Estate Investing….and if I did, if I was willing to test out a workshop he had just created to help would be real estate investors. I really hadn’t thought about it before, but the prospect was interesting. I’m always looking for a new way to make some extra money, so I thought what did I have to lose? He was offering the course for free, so I gave it a shot.

I got through the first 3 modules that he had completed and I was hooked. After that, I began reading as many books and papers on Real Estate Investing in Canada as I could (book recommendations to come). If I had any questions about what I was reading, I would email Jonathan and he would usually get back to me that day. We went back and fourth quite a bit and I owe a lot of what I have leaned from him.  I spent the rest of March, April and May filling my brain with as much knowledge as I could. Unfortunately, I had all but abandoned my failing website business, but as luck would have it, I have found time now to get back into the online world.

By the middle of May, I had decided on doing a Rent to Own and had an ad up on Kijiji looking for tenants. Yes, it was a quick transition from knowing nothing to buying my first investment property, but that first investment has turned out to be my best so far. We’ll get into that and the one that didn’t work out so well in the coming days and weeks.