The Power of Having a Real Estate Mentor
Like most things in life, gaining knowledge and wisdom comes through experience, typically challenging ones. This is especially true in the real estate industry. Every real estate transaction presents new challenges and solutions. Therefore, the more you go through, the more you are prepared for what lies ahead. Fortunately, you don’t always have to learn the hard way. If someone has already been through the ups and downs in this business and is successful, why not learn from them?
JB2 has been blessed to have amazing mentors throughout our real estate careers in the residential and commercial sectors. In this blog, we will touch on how having experienced mentors has helped us fast-track our journeys and taught us what it takes to succeed in this business.
Success in the Flip Business
In our flip business, we were blessed to have two mentors that had been flipping homes in the Los Angeles area for decades. They showed us the process of flipping homes from A to Z. For instance, we learned how to find deals, underwrite deals, create rehab budgets, finance, design, and close the deal. As we learned through flipping hundreds of homes, having an experienced investor by our side that you can depend on is priceless.
Issues arise in all parts of the flip process and having someone that has already encountered such problems will save you a lot of stress and money. We have seen in Los Angeles a lot of inexperienced people that feel they can flip a home. They end up overpaying and not considering possible time delays, change orders, issues with the city, and possibly selling the property for less than expected. These people end up losing money and not multiplying their capital. And in the worst-case scenarios, they end up with lawsuits for cutting corners while trying to save money. Working with realistic people on what issues will arise and are conservative in their approach makes all the difference.
Success in the Multifamily Real Estate Business
Though we have owned and managed many multifamily units in the past, we knew it was imperative we get a mentor when entering the syndication world. Here, we are not only investing our own money but the money of our investors, which is something we take very seriously. Therefore, we paid a mentor to guide us through the process, to make sure we covered all angles of the process and the deal.
Whenever we had any questions or doubts, our mentor was only just a phone call or text away. As our mentor had syndicated 3,000+ units, it gave us peace of mind having him by our side. And not just that, he was also able to connect us with other great people, such as attorneys, brokers, and CPAs. Though it would have been possible to do it without a mentor, we felt that much stronger and confident with him covering our backs.
Strong Mentors Enable a Strong Real Estate Methodology
Having a strong mentor is a fast pass to accelerating your real estate knowledge. You are receiving many years of experience in real-time on live deals. It’s like playing a sport and training with a coach. As we all know, all professional sports teams have coaches.
Yes, in some cases, mentors can be costly. However, the amount of money you will make from increasing your deal flow and the amount you will save from avoiding mistakes makes it far worth the investment.