Becoming a Professional Investor in 5 Easy Steps

By: Dan O'Connor
The late Napoleon Hill noted in his timeless classic, Think and Grow Rich!, that in order to achieve success in anything you want you'll need to acquire specialized knowledge. Becoming a professional real estate investor takes a combination of specialized knowledge and general knowledge to skyrocket your success.

Where Do You Search?

There is plenty of information which can be gathered from many sources such as the internet, various home study courses, your local library or by learning from an experienced mentor. There are countless courses and training sessions available and literally hundreds of books have been written about the subject.

Realize that many roads that can lead to success, but only one is right for you. You must decide which path it is going to be which will lead you to become a professional investor.

The First Step -

Along the way to building your education, I suggest that you don't quit your day job until you are making at least the same money investing in your spare time as you are presently earning at your current full time job. This is the first piece of advice anyone should give the new investor.

One reason is that you'll need working capital to make deals happen and to cover any necessary holding costs until your deal sells and you have cash in your pocket. I've seen countless would be investors fall out of the race before they even got started because they believed all of the guru hype about making a million dollars overnight.

Infomercial gurus are always talking about no money down deals but true no money down deals take specialized knowledge to make happen and aren't as common as all of the so-called gurus would lead you to believe. There are always some sort of holding costs, closing costs or points, mortgage insurance and title insurance, to pay.

As your education advances you'll become more in tune with what strategies to use and when to use them. Don't worry about right now. You didn't learn everything there is to know about your present occupation in a couple of hours so understand that advancing through the levels of real estate investing takes a little time.

Easy Does It! - Step Two

The next step to success in becoming a professional investor is getting to know your local market place. Real estate markets can vary from state to state and city to city. You'll want to know what is going on in your area so you can make deals happen quickly and know what it will take to get them sold and get a hefty check in your pocket as a result.

You'll also need to know who your target buyers are going to be so you'll never be scrambling to sell your deals when the time comes. For example, should you sell the conventional way using a real estate agent or sell the property yourself using some type of owner financing?

There's A Law For That? - Step Three

You'd better believe there are laws governing what real estate investors can and can't do, especially when dealing with distressed sellers. You need to have a basic understanding of the laws that govern your area, not some other state. No need to panic, though. Everything you'll need to know is easily found out as you add an experienced real estate attorney to your team.

Take That To The Bank - Step Four

You'll need to learn property values for any given neighborhood you choose to work in. Determine how much the value of the homes have gone up or down by accessing your county assessor's website (or in person) for sales history of a target property, build a relationship with several real estate agents who understand what exactly you are looking for in regard to potential deals and get educated on the distressed real estate market for your area.

All The Parts Create The Whole - Step Five

Part of your team of professionals will include a lender or mortgage broker (preferably several). Become friends with your lenders because you'll want to be able to call and talk to a loan officer or mortgage broker about a potential investment as the need arises.

Finance companies are becoming very particular about who they deal with and how much they will loan due to the recent sub prime lending meltdown as well as several of the major lenders declaring bankruptcy or going through some other restructuring .

The mortgage crisis of 2007-2008 has put a LOT in a crunch situation. This does not have to affect you if you know who to talk to lenders, have reasonably good credit scores and what lending requirements they'll need.

Of course, if you plan to use your own cash or credit, getting pre-approval for a loan can speed up closings. This is something you will need in order to not have your profits reduced by unforeseen expenses.

An experienced broker or lender who will tell you whether or not a deal will hold until closing or fall apart in front of your face is crucial to your success as well as peace of mind.

Professional investors do take on partners for joint investment ventures. I still do so from time to time, depending on how many deals I have in play at any one time and how much cash I have in circulation.

This practice is acceptable when taking a calculated risk on a large commercial property or exclusive home. Just remember that if you're going to do a joint venture with someone, be sure to partner with someone who brings something to the table that you don't have, such as money or experience.

The Sky Is The Limit!

Always be open to learning new strategies and tactics as well as modifying what you may already know to ensure that you keep a competitive edge over other investors in your area.

Learn as much as you can and then take action on what you learn!

Remember that knowledge is only potential power but applied knowledge is real power! Seek out specialized knowledge from someone who has already done what you want to do and the money will flow like a river.

To Summarize -

Your first deal is right around the corner if you'll follow these five easy steps:

1.Education and knowledge gathering
2.Set your (realistic) goals.
3.Learn house values in your market place.
4.Build your team of professional to help you.
5.Take massive action and find a profitable deal.

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About the Author:
To discover how to create your own profitable push button house buying system that never fails and to claim your FREE video detailing how Dan O'Connor's renowned Your First Deal System will work for you - Go here now: http://www.YourFirstDeal.com