1) Wholesale Real Estate:
Traditional wholesaling is when you buy something in bulk at a discounted price (called the wholesale price) and then you sell it at a higher price (called the retail price).
In real estate, you can do something similar without actually buying a property.
First, you have to find a property that a home owner is struggling to sell (this is surprisingly easier than you might think). Let's say this property is worth $100,000.
Second, you would enter into an option contract to buy the home for $90,000 (home owners will give you a discount if they've been struggling to sell the home). An option contract gives you the option to buy the home OR terminate the agreement at no cost.
Third, you would market the home for sale at a higher price (around $100,000).
Fourth, when you find a buyer, you would sell them the option contract to buy the home.
This way the home owner sells their home and they walk away with $90,000 so they are happy. The buyer gets the home they wanted. And you, the wholesaler, get to walk away with the difference ($10,000).
A win-win-win.
This is an oversimplification, but wholesaling is a popular way to get your feet wet in real estate because you don't need much money to get started.
If you're interested in learning more about wholesaling, we recommend this webinar (they do pitch a paid course if you're interested - you're not required to buy).
As a heads up, it is not our course and it is not our webinar. It's an additional resource if you want to learn more about wholesaling.
2) Real Estate Brokerage:
Real estate brokers (also knows as real estate sales people) are the ones who help people buy and sell real estate.
If you're a sales agent, you'll be forced to learn about sales and negotiating because that's what you'll be doing pretty much every day.
Plus, you can be a commercial property broker as a strategic way to meet and work with real estate investors in your area.
And it will familiarize you with what's happening in your real estate market.
3) Property Management:
Many real estate investors don't want to deal with unruly tenants and late night maintenance requests.
So, they hire a property management company to handle all of the day-to-day work.
Property managers are in charge of marketing and leasing out properties. They do tenant screening, handle evictions, pay bills, and do everything else to make sure the investment property is generating a profit.
In return, you get to keep a percentage of the rent.
This is a way to see how real estate investing works without risking any of your own money to buy a property.
4) Invest in Real Estate:
If you've been reading our emails, you already understand how real estate investing works so we won't go through all the details again here.
Essentially, you research good neighborhoods, find a property, and then lease it out. Tenants pay you to use or live in your property.
You can also use Fundrise to invest in Real Estate deals with as little as $500.
5) Real Estate Development:
Developers are the ones who conceptualize, construct, and build buildings from the ground up.
You don't need to be a mega-millionaire to develop real estate, but you will need access to capital.
Your job as a developer is to come up with the best use for a particular piece of land, design it, fund it, and build it.
If this is something you're interested in but you don't know how to start, contact a developer in your area and buy them lunch or coffee for an hour of their time.
6) Real Estate Lending:
Do you have the capital to invest in real estate but don't want to go through all the work?
Then you can be a real estate lender.
As a lender, you would loan other real estate investors the money to invest in real estate.
You make money with interest and you will receive a loan payment every month.
And if you don't get paid? Then you can foreclose on the property and sell it to satisfy the loan.
You should speak to an attorney to understand all of the lending laws in your area before you start doing this.
7) Contracting:
Are you good with your hands? Then you can be a contractor.
Real estate investors hire contracts to get their properties rent-ready and take care of general maintenance.
Plus, by working on other investment properties, you will learn what's important and what's not with investment properties.
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