The Fastest Way to Get Good at Real Estate Investing (Saves You Years)

Today, we’re showing you exactly how to learn about real estate investing, so you can get your first property faster. There are thousands of videos, podcasts, books, and forums floating around. Where do you even start? The amount of information alone is enough to keep you stuck on the sidelines. Not to mention, there’s a lot of bad information out there. In this episode, we’re giving you a clear roadmap for getting all the information you need before buying your first rental property. Property management? Finding contractors? Those are tomorrow’s problems. To get in the game and buy a good investment now, there are only a few skills you really need to hone. We’ll show you exactly what they are and where you can go to learn all about them. These are specific tools for those who are learning the ropes—resources we wish we had access to when we were starting out. Stop trying to learn everything. Learn these things, in this order, and you’ll be taking down real estate deals in no time! In This Episode We Cover The best ways to learn about real estate investing (starting from zero) The number one real estate skill every new investor should prioritize Two “buckets” of real estate investing education (and which to pull from) Our favorite real estate books, podcasts, and other tools for getting started The biggest barrier to real estate investing in 2026 (focus on this) What we got right (and wrong) early on in our investing journeys And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠⁠t⁠t⁠ps://www⁠.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1319⁠⁠. Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Henry Washington?

  This is our exact framework for learning about real estate investing so you can actually start investing. There are thousands of podcasts, books, masterminds, meetups, forums, conferences, and more. Where do you even start? The amount of information alone is enough to keep you stuck on the sidelines. Not to mention, there's a lot of bad information out there, but we're about to simplify all of it. Today, we're giving you a clear roadmap for getting all the information you need before buying your first rental property. Property management, finding contractors, those are tomorrow's problems. To get in the game and buy a good investment now, there are only a handful of skills you really need to hone. We'll show

• 0:43Henry Washington?

  you exactly what they are and where you can go learn all about them. These are the resources we wish we had access to when we were starting out. Stop trying to learn everything and learn these things in this order and you'll be taking down real estate deals in no time.

• 1:05Henry Washington?

  What's going on everybody? I am Henry Washington and I am here as always with my co-host Dave Meyer. What's up Dave?

• 1:12Dave Meyer?

  What's going on man?

• 1:13Henry Washington?

  Today, we're actually talking about how to learn about investing in real estate. So, don't get that confused with actually learning about investing in real estate, but you and I both know, there's a lot of people out there who claim to want to teach people how to invest in real estate. There's lots of resources out there where people can learn about real estate. Obviously, BiggerPockets is a huge resource for that, but there's tons of information on YouTube, on Instagram, on all these different social media platforms. And it's a little different than when I first started learning how to invest in real estate. There was a lot less of that.

• 1:47Dave Meyer?

  It's so different.

• 1:48Henry Washington?

  And so I think people now kind of get a deer in the headlights look when it's time to start learning because you don't know who to trust, you don't know what information's right. For every person that says one thing is bad, there's somebody else who's killing it with that thing. So it can be very confusing.

• 2:04Dave Meyer?

  I think having a framework for how to go about learning the skills that you need is actually really helpful because real estate, there's just so much to it. If you just go in and just like, I'm going to learn about real estate, you're going to be reading about commercial real estate and single-family real estate. Every market in the country is going to become so overwhelming so quickly, you probably will get lost and drown a little bit. So I think just trying to even prioritize what things you need to learn, in what order, and then figure out where to go and find that information that's really reliable and reputable. That's just gold. Like having that framework is so valuable for investors really of any

• 2:48Dave Meyer?

  stage, even if you've done a few deals, just like, how do you get to the next step? You should always be learning.

• 2:53Henry Washington?

  All right. So let's jump in and get started. So let's talk a little bit about how we first started to learn about real estate investing. So how did you learn?

• 3:03Dave Meyer?

  I didn't.

• 3:03Henry Washington?

  Did you learn?

• 3:06Dave Meyer?

  No, no, I didn't. I bought a deal before I learned, for sure. I kind of just went with the make it up as you go along approach to real estate investing. I learned a little bit because I, when I first was out of college, I was waiting tables and I was just trying to find like a different job, like some way into a higher earning job. And I took a job cold calling for a tenant rep. So the woman I was working for was also a broker and just knew a lot about real estate and was just kind of like talking to me a little bit about pricing and how good prices were in Denver right now and how you could cash flow. And then honestly, a friend of mine bought a deal and he had no idea what he was doing and he

• 3:48Dave Meyer?

  was crushing it. And I was like, if this guy could do it, I'm going to do it too. And so I relied a lot on my agent and my lender at the time, because I didn't know what a mortgage was. Like I just kind of went with the ignorance is bliss approach. Then I joined BiggerPockets and I was like, oh my God, I've been doing everything wrong for six straight years. I could have grown so much faster, been so much more efficient, so many fewer headaches.

• 4:13Henry Washington?

  My story is a little different. So I started in 2017 and at that point, BiggerPockets was obviously a thing. And there were other real estate books and podcasts. So it wasn't like the golden era of online education yet. I feel like that came during the pandemic years, but there were still information out there. And so I was in BiggerPockets forums all day long. I just started at episode one for BiggerPockets podcast and I just started listening. I just wanted to learn as much as I could. So I started at the first episode, listened all the way through. One of the struggles I had again was which lessons in real estate made the most sense for me. So the way I framed things, and I'm using the

• 4:55Henry Washington?

  word frame purposely, is what I wanted to do was put some guide rails around what I wanted to learn. In other words, like I knew I wanted to focus on single-family real estate. And I only knew that at that point because I felt like it was affordable in my market and it was as low risk as I could get. So I wasn't trying to figure out how to make as much money possible. I was just trying to figure out, how can I do this in my backyard and be able to afford it? So that kind of helped me narrow my focus. And the other thing I focused on was the things I was the most apprehensive about. And the two things I was the most apprehensive about are still the two things I think most investors focus

• 5:36Henry Washington?

  on. I didn't know how to find deals at a discount and I didn't know where to get the money. And so I started to kind of hone in what I was listening to and reading around locating deals and around financing. I would say that that's what really helped me is just selecting the kind of asset that I wanted to buy and then figuring out where I was going to find those assets and then figure out where I was going to get the money to buy those assets. I figured everything else I could learn after that. Like if I didn't know those two things, I couldn't do anything.

• 6:12Dave Meyer?

  I think that's the right way to go though, right? Like you just kind of have to pick, like what's the most important or what's my biggest weakness, my biggest blind spot? And I'll figure everything else out later.

• 6:23Henry Washington?

  I kind of learned this in the corporate world, which was when you have a big problem like that, that has like multiple facets, you start with the part of the problem that is the most immediate. Like you can't move on to the next problem until this one is solved. So I would say to people, if you're just starting your education journey, what's that lowest common denominator for you? What's the thing that you have to solve before any of the other things you're worried about even matter?

• 6:50Dave Meyer?

  Everyone should decide that for themselves. I'll just tell you, I think for the majority of people, it's deal finding right now. I think it's one of the clearer times in real estate where the one barrier is pretty much universal to everyone. And I know, like you said financing, of course, people are worried about financing, but like honestly, there's not that much to learn about financing. Like either you can afford a house or not. Like I'm sorry to be blunt about it, but if you need to raise money for your first deal, that is totally fine. You still need to do deal finding. No one is going to fund you without a deal. So like, as Henry said, you have to prioritize deal finding. If you're going

• 7:32Dave Meyer?

  out and raising private capital or asking friends or family or whatever, having a deal is the way to do that. And so deal finding has to come first. I would be willing to lend money to, like a friend or family. If they came to me and they're like, will you help me buy a house? I'm like, what's the deal? And you said, I don't know. I'd be like, get the hell out of here. Go bring me a deal and I'll tell you if I'll lend you money. So I think that's number one. When you were learning though, was the podcast enough for you to learn about off-market deal finding?

• 7:59Henry Washington?

  I learned a lot about off-market deal finding, listening to the podcast, but what really helped me was when I would listen to guests who talked about off-market deal finding, they would talk about strategies that would let me know where to go dive deeper. So like I would listen to an episode about somebody who was doing direct mail and then I would go read a book recommendation that they have, or I would go search something that they talked about and I would dive deeper. One of the things I did when I, when I was first researching off-market deal finding, was I was trying to figure out like what list should I send mail to? And the way I determined that was I just went back and listened to every podcast episode I could with like off-market deal finders or wholesalers who were doing

• 8:39Henry Washington?

  off-market deal finders and wrote down if they talked about who they were mailing to. And I just started to make a list of all these people. And then I decided to start mailing to the least mentioned lists on there because I didn't want to compete with the big dogs. So everybody at that time, I remember vividly, everybody at that time was mailing to absentee owners. Like that was the number one by far. Everybody was doing that. And so I said, great. I don't want to do that. And so that's kind of how I narrowed down, pulling my very first off-market deal finding list.

• 9:14Dave Meyer?

  And how long did it take you of practicing that to feel like you knew it? Cause like there's this balance in everything in real estate between Educating beforehand or being dumb like me and just like jumping in and trying stuff. Like there is a, there is a balance that's hard to figure out. So how do you do it with deal finding?

• 9:32Henry Washington?

  I probably spent about a month consistently, couple hours every day, not just like here or there doing some research, but like every day doing a little bit of research. I probably spent about 30 days before I actually pulled my first list and sent my first direct mail campaign. But I remember being so scared and thinking I, there's no way. I, I just don't know enough. And I was so scared to spend the money. I actually had to kind of talk myself into spending the money by literally writing down like how much it was going to cost me. And so I had my number and then I said, all right, if I lose this money, how can I minimize that impact? And for me, it was I, I put that cost on a 0% interest for 15 months credit card and I divided that amount by 15. And I said, all

• 10:16Henry Washington?

  right, if I don't get a deal, then I have to pay $200 a month for 15 months. That's my punishment. Can I afford to do that with my current lifestyle? And the answer was yes. And so that kind of helped take away the fear of losing the money because I, I knew I could absorb that loss.

• 10:34Dave Meyer?

  I think that's a really good way to think about it. What is the worst thing that could possibly happen? Real estate is forgiving. It's more forgiving than people realize. I've made some bad stock picks. I have made some dumb moves there. Not that forgiving. Sometimes, you know, doing well on other ones, but you know, that's a great way to look at it. 200 bucks, 200 bucks a month. That's the risk for huge upside. Like if you compare that to upside, $200 a month risk versus I'm just going to make it up, but 500 bucks a month in cash flow. You take that bet all day. That's great risk reward. So that's, I really highly recommend that. That's a great way to do it.

• 11:13Henry Washington?

  All right. Obviously we've been doing this for a long time. The way we learned was different, but some of the lessons in how we learned still apply. So thank you for sharing that. I think what I want to cover next is like, what are the options for people if they want to learn? Where can they turn to either online or in person to learn? But I want to dig into that right after the break. Here's a strategy that most W2 employees have never heard of. Normally, if you want to write off a rental property against your regular income, you need real estate professional status. That means tracking hundreds of hours a year. Rent to Retirement just launched a program that skips all of that. It's called the STR loophole tenant placement program. Here's how it works.

• 11:56Henry Washington?

  You buy one of Rent to Retirement's Class A new construction investment properties. You set up an Airbnb listing and self-manage it for the remainder of the year. Rent to Retirement then rents the home as a short-term rental to establish it as an STR for the year. No furnishing required, making this the easy button to save five or six figures in taxes this year. And because you're the sole manager, there's no hourly minimum to meet. That lets you use a cost segregation study to accelerate the depreciation and potentially write off over $100,000 against your income, even on your first rental. Add in cash back up to 13% of the home price, which exceeds $60,000 on some properties. With this massive cash back incentives, investors are seeing total returns

• 12:41Henry Washington?

  up to 126%. New construction, A-class properties, and inventory is limited. Learn more at biggerpockets.com/retirement or text REI to 33777. Again, text REI to 33777.

• 12:59Dave Meyer?

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• 13:31Henry Washington?

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• 14:12Henry Washington?

  get a $400 statement credit after spending $400 on your Aven card. Enough to cover your entire annual Pro membership. Head over to aven.com/biggerpockets to see if you qualify. Aven Financial, NMLS number 2042345. Cards issued per 2020 license from Visa USA Inc. by Coastal Community Bank, NMLS number 462289. Member FDIC, equal housing lender, subject to approval, terms apply. Visit aven.com for details.

• 14:36Speaker 02

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• 15:07Henry Washington?

  All right, we're back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. Dave Meyer and I are talking about how to learn how to invest in real estate. We've already covered how each of us got our education, but now we want to talk a little bit about like, where can people turn to for good educational resources? So obviously, we're going to say biggerpockets.com is a wonderful place for you to start learning how to invest in real estate. There's literally years and years of investors' experience sitting out there in the forums that have been there for a long time that you can start

• 15:46Henry Washington?

  to go through. And then there's obviously hundreds and hundreds of podcast episodes of both professionals in the business and amateurs who are sharing their stories. But even that sometimes can feel like, man, where do I start? So what other resources are out there for people that you think are credible resources?

• 16:07Dave Meyer?

  I try and bucket information that I want to learn into two things for real estate. Like, one is what is information I want from an expert, like the best person in their field? Those are things like when I started getting into passive investing, I really wanted to learn how to underwrite passive investing deals. Like I read the book Hands Off Investor by Brian Burke. It helped me so much. Great book if you're interested in passive investing. And then there's the whole other bucket, which is like, what do I need to learn from my peers? Which I think is something underappreciated where I want to talk to people who have experience doing exactly what I do. And so that's like a different set of resources. So learning from experts, podcasts

• 16:48Dave Meyer?

  are obviously an example. I think YouTube is excellent. And I personally love to read. I think books are super, super helpful, especially because in today's day and age, everything is so overwhelming. If you just go on social media and you look, people are going to pull your attention into a million different directions. So if you have an intention to learn a specific skill, go buy a book and spend 10 hours reading and highlighting it and thinking about it and not getting distracted by everything else. And I have recommendations for good books, but I just think that like dive deep on a topic and not think about the 10,000 other things you could be learning about real

• 17:28Dave Meyer?

  estate, because there are. Like I really am just a big book person. So maybe that's just me. I'm old school.

• 17:34Henry Washington?

  I think that's a great idea. What I would recommend to people is use the online resources to figure out where you need or want to dive deeper. And then when you're ready to dive deeper, that's where you use books or other written educational resources, because you can just get so much more granular data in a book versus a podcast or even a YouTube video. There's only so much they can cover that's beyond the surface. So use the higher level, easier to digest information like the forums and the podcasts and YouTube videos, Instagram content. Use those

• 18:16Henry Washington?

  things to give yourself the guide rails. Like where am I going to operate in? What's that frame? And then once you have that frame, great. Now you can go look for some books that are specifically teaching about finding off-market deals or specifically teaching about something even more granular, like using direct mail specifically for off-market deals. You can read entire books with a lot of granular detail and that can really help you get a sense of like almost subject matter expertise before you ever done it because you're getting such detail. But if you start there, you could end up wasting a lot of time.

• 18:51Dave Meyer?

  What's your favorite real estate book? And you can't say mine because I know you're going to say these are just so incredible and flawless.

• 18:58Henry Washington?

  You're right. You're right. You took the words literally out of my mouth. In reference to what I was just talking about, one of the books that really helped me when I first got started was Gary Keller's book, The Millionaire Real Estate Investor, because I felt like it really gave you those guide rails. Like it put real estate investing from an investor's standpoint like into perspective for me and then helped me figure out where to go focus on.

• 19:25Dave Meyer?

  Yeah, it's a good one. I like that book too. I'll say I really like the Hands Off Investor because that, that and there's a book called Lend to Live too. They're both BiggerPockets books, but they just taught me strategies I knew nothing about. Like I was starting pretty much from zero as an LP investor and I felt after reading Brian's book, I know enough that I can go have a conversation with a local investor and like ask questions and like get smarter. And then Lend to Live, which is like a private lending book is really helpful too. Those are the ones I've read in the last couple of years that I really liked. So then the, the other part of this though, like you asked me where to learn, like these are kind of in my bucket of things I want to learn from experts. But then the other

• 20:06Dave Meyer?

  things you learn, honestly, I think more, you learn more from talking to people who are doing the stuff you're doing. So like I treat the book, kind of like I was just saying, how do I not sound dumb? When I go and, and ask intelligent questions and when I go to a meetup or post something on the BiggerPockets forum, like how do I have a real question that take seriously? I really think that's kind of a good framework is like educate yourself enough to go get face to face with someone or it doesn't even need to be face to face. Go on the forums of BiggerPockets and chat with people. That's where you're going to learn what deals are good in your neighborhood, what lender to work with, what contractor to work with. That is education.

• 20:48Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Dave Meyer?

  It's networking too. And for that, I mean, there's only two ways I know. It's either digital communities like BiggerPockets or some smaller mentorship groups or stuff like that, or real estate meetups, like going to events like BPCon or going just to local meetups in your area. Like people call it networking, but it's also education. You learn so much from those situations.

• 21:10Henry Washington?

  It is education through networking. Absolutely. And I like the idea of educating yourself enough to be able to ask good questions because the better questions you can ask of a seasoned investor, the better answers you're going to get. And the more help they'll want to give you, because you're right, it is refreshing to get a good, well thought up question when someone needs some help versus just a generic question. But this also leads into the next question that I hear all the time. I'm sure you do too, which is how much education do I need before I do my first deal?

• 21:44Dave Meyer?

  Oh.

• 21:44Henry Washington?

  Right? And I think it's a fair question. In other words, I think people are just trying to make themselves feel better about spending so much time educating versus taking action. But I think the comparison is necessary. The way I think of this question is it's not necessarily how much education do you need before you can do your first deal? It's, I think there are some key things you need to learn how to do and be comfortable enough doing them before you buy your first deal. And so the timeframe is going to be different for different people. But I think the key thing you need here is how to evaluate a property and underwrite a deal. Like if you are

• 22:26Henry Washington?

  not comfortable looking at a property, analyzing it and understanding, is this a good deal?

• 22:33Dave Meyer?

  Yeah.

• 22:33Henry Washington?

  What's the price point I need to buy it at for it to be considered a good deal for me? And then what am I going to spend in time or money on getting this thing up to snuff so that it can produce the income that I want it to produce? Like if you can't answer those questions with some level of comfortability, then you probably need to continue your education because where people are going to get burned is they're going to overpay and they're going to underestimate things. Either underestimate the rehab or underestimate the timeline and then they end up in a place where they may not be able to hold on to that property and they got to give it back, or they're just bleeding cash on a deal because they jumped in a little too soon.

• 23:12Dave Meyer?

  At its core, that is being an investor. That is the most important job of investor is discerning what deals to buy and which ones to ignore.

• 23:21Henry Washington?

  Yes.

• 23:21Dave Meyer?

  Everything else, property management, you could choose to outsource that, even deal finding, you can, you know, you can pay a wholesaler, like you can outsource that. You can't outsource the decision on, on writing the check.

• 23:32Henry Washington?

  Yep.

• 23:33Dave Meyer?

  That is, that is up to you. And so like that is, that is number one thing. I completely agree. If you do not understand that, don't buy anything. Fortunately, it's not that hard to learn. It sounds intimidating, but like, I mean, we've put out a million episodes of this podcast on YouTube. You can check it out, like how to evaluate deals. It's absolutely something you can learn. So like, if I wanted to learn that, I guess the podcast, I will say like my book, you know, I'm going to, if you want to learn the numbers, like Real Estate by the Numbers is a good book for that. I think it's really kind of one of the only ones that really gets into the math behind it. If you're that kind of person. But I think even most rental property books like go, go over that pretty well.

• 24:16Henry Washington?

  Here's how I would break it down. How much education do you need? Enough to know whether you're buying a good deal or not. What does that entail? Here's the things you need to be able to do. A, you have to understand your market enough to understand what a good deal looks like. Cause a good deal in Seattle is different than a good deal in Northwest Arkansas, right? Dave and I live in different markets and the price points of the good deals are very different. Even the, even when you look at percentages, if you were to break it down into percentage wise, the percentages can be different. So you need to understand enough about your market to know what kind of a discount do I need to get on a property for it to produce the income I need it to produce

• 24:59Henry Washington?

  to hit my goals. The second thing you need to understand is how are you going to comp your properties or how are you going to figure out what the after repair value is for your properties? This is the most important metric you need to know. If you're going to flip properties, your ARV is how you're going to get to your max allowable offer. You back into your max allowable offer once you know what your after repair value is. So you need to figure out, how am I going to comp properties? Am I going to do it on my own? Am I going to rely on an agent? How good are they at comping properties? But you got to figure out, how are you going to determine what your ARVs are for the properties that you're looking to buy? Third thing you need to understand, how much is

• 25:42Henry Washington?

  it going to cost to fix up the property? That was the biggest struggle for me when starting to evaluate deals because I'm not handy. I did not understand anything about construction, building, none of that made any sense to me. And so this part of underwriting was the most uncomfortable for me. So the way I solved that problem was I found people who were really good at it and I got them to walk properties with me to help me understand.

• 26:08Dave Meyer?

  That's that networking thing.

• 26:09Henry Washington?

  That's the networking. So those three things I would say are what you need to understand before you go buy anything. What's a good deal look like in your market? How are you going to determine how much properties are worth after it's fixed up? And then how are you going to determine what it's going to cost to fix it up? If you are comfortable enough, understanding those three numbers, you're probably ready to go ahead and start making offers on properties.

• 26:35Dave Meyer?

  The other thing I personally find as important is knowing the order of operations. In just the last couple of years, I started passive investing. I started lending and I also did my first flip a year ago. So for a flip, like I kind of got it, but I just like, didn't really understand like, all right, do I meet with an architect before I close? When do I get my as-built done? Like I just wanted to get the checklist and the order I needed to go through it because I have a high degree of confidence in myself that I'll be able to learn those things when I get to the appropriate stage in the process. But I don't want to do it out of order. I feel like that's

• 27:15Dave Meyer?

  what really screws you up is like, if you totally forget to do something and then like you're two months into a project, you're like, oh, I should have filed for that permit and now I'm screwed.

• 27:24Henry Washington?

  Yeah.

• 27:25Dave Meyer?

  I just want to know what order to attack it in. Cause like we were talking about before, you need to know what the biggest problem is. And so if you create sort of a calendar look almost of like, here's everything I need to do. Here's the order to go in. I find that really reassuring and helpful because then you can go educate yourself as you get to each thing and learn as you go. If you feel confident that you're not going to miss something.

• 27:51Henry Washington?

  And there's order of operations when it comes to a deal and how you execute a deal. And there's order of operations when it comes to like a renovation and how you execute a renovation and like having a basic understanding of what the steps are. And those are things that there is tons of information out there on. You can find them in forums. You can also ask AI to help you with putting together a list of like, what are the steps that you need to learn? Please verify what it tells you. But absolutely, those are things you can help build. You're right. And that's a good point too, because a lot of people aren't chefs, but can follow a cookbook recipe, right? So it's very similar.

• 28:26Dave Meyer?

  Exactly. Cause like then if you get to, all right, you need to flambe some bananas and you're like, what the hell is flambe? Then you can go look at it, but like you know, you're at the right step of the recipe. Well, all right, we'll go do some research on that, but you didn't need to know that ahead of time.

• 28:41Henry Washington?

  All right. What I want to do now is talk about the kinds of education. There's free education. There's paid education. There's a lot of value in both. And I want to dive into what are the options for each right after the break.

• 28:54Dave Meyer?

  You know, when I first started sharing my real estate journeys online, I didn't have a website. I had a spreadsheet, an Instagram account, and no idea how they'd ever connect. I remember thinking a real website was going to cost me thousands of dollars and take a developer weeks to build. So I kept putting it off. Then I found Hostinger. I typed in what I wanted, a site to show off my deals, share my story and capture leads. And their AI builder had a working version live in minutes. No code, no designer, no developer needed. And it didn't stop at launch. Once my site was live, Hostinger's AI agent helped me figure out what to try next, acting like a built-in team of specialists for SEO, website

• 29:38Dave Meyer?

  copy, email marketing, and more. Domain, website, email, marketing. One Hostinger account covers it all. So you're not stitching together five subscriptions or wondering if they even talk to each other. Plans start at just $3 a month, so you can begin at your own pace and build from there. Hostinger builds your vision step by step. Create your website today. Go to hostinger.com/realestate and use code REALESTATE for 10% off now.

• 30:07Henry Washington?

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• 30:52Henry Washington?

  So when it's time for your next Toyota, you could trade in for more from a great deal today to a great value tomorrow. A Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 31:07Dave Meyer?

  I just booked a ski trip to Park City, and I've already got the whole thing planned out. Five days, first tracks every morning before the crowds show up, my knees reminding me I'm not 25 anymore by the second run, and an embarrassing number of overpriced burritos at the lodge. I don't even care. This is the trip I look forward to all year. But here's the part I actually appreciate. The practical side of my brain kicking in is that my place doesn't have to just sit there empty the whole time I'm away. I can list my space on Airbnb and bring in a little extra income while I'm out getting humbled on a mountain. And with the co-host network, I'm not the one handling all of it. You can

• 31:49Dave Meyer?

  partner with a vetted local co-host who can create your listing, manage reservations, message guests, and even handle the styling. So I get to fully focus on my trip, and my place is still working for me the whole time. Find a co-host at airbnb.com/host. Investing in real estate has always been smart, but it hasn't always been simple. Now it's both, thanks to the Fundrise Flagship Fund. The Fundrise Flagship Fund launched more than five years ago with a mission of delivering low-fee access to blue-chip private market real estate. Today, the Fundrise Flagship Fund has grown to manage more than $1 billion of real estate on behalf of hundreds of thousands of investors, making it one of the largest

• 32:32Dave Meyer?

  funds of its kind. For those who believe real estate has an important role to play in their portfolio strategy, the Fundrise Flagship Fund has positioned itself as both a simple and a smart option. Whether you're starting with $10 or $10,000, the Fundrise Flagship Fund makes adding real estate's unique potential for both passive income and consistent growth. Just visit fundrise.com/pockets to make your first investment today. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund before investing. This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at fundrise.com/flagship. This is a paid advertisement.

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• 33:47Henry Washington?

  All right, I'm back on the BiggerPockets Podcast. Dave Meyer and I are talking about how to learn how to invest in real estate. We've talked about how Dave and I both learned how to invest in real estate, and we've also talked about what are some of the sources where people can invest in real estate, and how much education do you need before you really start taking action? But now I just kind of want to break a couple of things down, because education falls into two buckets, essentially. There's free education, and there's paid education. Free education consists of the things like podcasts, Youtubes, books, the social media platforms. There's free forums, free Facebook groups. There's local

• 34:29Henry Washington?

  meetups and RIA's. Paid education consists of things like courses, mentorships, masterminds, and all of those are obviously going to come with a price tag. So what I'd like to talk about is like, what are the pros and cons of each? And let's start with free education. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say one of the pros of free education is that it's free.

• 34:52Dave Meyer?

  Cost-effective, very cost-effective.

• 34:54Henry Washington?

  But what else makes this a good resource for people?

• 34:57Dave Meyer?

  I think most of the stuff that you need to learn about real estate should be free, to be honest. I think there are things worth paying for, but 75, 80% of the background information you need is free. So like, I don't think there are a lot of secrets in real estate.

• 35:11Henry Washington?

  There isn't.

• 35:12Dave Meyer?

  And there is not. So like, if you're the kind of person who likes to self-educate, you can. You know, that's kind of the route I've gone for most of my career. Looking back on it, I might have done things differently, but like, you can definitely do it that way. And I think the diversity of opinion is good, too. Now, that's a double-edged sword today because everyone has an opinion on social media, and some of them are really, really bad. So free, diversity of opinions, because you should get a lot of opinions, like, you should learn from multiple people and get multiple perspectives, but that is one of the trade-offs, too. And I think if you're just kind of like a sponge of information, if you're someone who really likes to go deep on things, like, there's so much to learn

• 35:54Dave Meyer?

  for free. So I think free education is like, should be a part of everyone's education journey.

• 35:59Henry Washington?

  As someone who gets paid for helping people learn how to invest in real estate, let me say that you do not need to pay someone to learn how to invest in real estate. There is enough free resources out there. There is enough, even inexpensive, resources that are out there if you want a little, if you want a little more organization to what it is you're looking for, right? I think the caveat with free education is you kind of have to choose your own adventure. You've got to piece together your own education.

• 36:31Dave Meyer?

  And you have to have discipline, too.

• 36:32Henry Washington?

  Yes. You gotta have discipline. You actually have to go through the information. You've got to hold yourself accountable. And then you have to leverage things like your RIA meetups and peer groups that you've built to help you understand if the things you're executing are you actually executing them correctly. But you don't have to pay for education to be successful.

• 36:53Dave Meyer?

  So what are the times to pay for education? Like, is it, I think it's to speed up, right? Because it usually can speed up to learn a very specific skill. Like, if there's an expert in one thing, and you really want to get excellent at it, having a mentor makes sense to me.

• 37:09Henry Washington?

  What people pay for with education, or what I feel like people should pay for with education, is one, organization of information. Two, a community of people doing the same thing that you're doing who holds you accountable. And so I think that paid education is good for people who don't have a ton of time, but they have a time horizon with which they need to get deals done in order to help them meet their financial goals. If you've got all the time in the world, you can do it for free. But if you've got a time horizon you've got to meet, and you're a busy professional, it may not be the best choice to go and spend months and months on free education and then still feel like you're not quite

• 37:51Henry Washington?

  sure what steps to take. So I think there is a right audience for paid education, but I think a lot of the best benefits to paid education, it's the community, it's the built-in discipline, it's the organization, and it's the accountability. Those are the things that I think are valuable in paid education.

• 38:09Dave Meyer?

  For sure. And there's different formats. Like, you have a community, obviously, and that's one thing. But like, I think there are even tools, like software, that's like paid education, that's worth it, too. Or going to BPCon, or going to an event, that are all worth it. I will say, too, like, it really depends on the type of investor you want to be. For example, I don't do off-market deal finding. If I did, I'd probably pay someone to teach me how to do that. Instead, I pay for people to find me deals, so I'm just paying for it in a different way, you know? Right? It's just like, I, but that's fine. I'm okay with that. But like, you're going to have to pay for stuff in, in your investing career, whether you want to pay for education or not, up to you. But it really depends, like, what skills you're trying to learn and how quickly.

• 38:54Henry Washington?

  And it's cool that you mentioned BPCon, because my very next question to you was going to be like, what about all these conferences? Because technically, conferences are paid education. Do you feel like that is a good use of people's money?

• 39:07Dave Meyer?

  I stand by BPCon so hard. Like, I think it's just so valuable. I've just seen so many people, yourself included, who have like, really like, transformed their investing career. Because I think the, the piece that we haven't really talked about is just like, it's education with like, so much motivation. That's what I love about conferences and in-person events, is you get both for a pretty good price. Like, BPCon, for, for everything you get and for how fun it is, is not that expensive. Even like, the local events you and I have done, the Seattle events, the Cash Flow Roadshow, like, those aren't expensive events. And it's just, I teach at them and I'm like, ready to run through a wall after them. I'm like so excited because you learn something and you're fired up.

• 39:50Dave Meyer?

  And I just feel like you put your, what you learn into practice so quickly after them. That's just for me. I like, I like social events. So like, for me, they're fun. I get for not everyone they are, but I think even if you're not super outgoing, you still can learn a ton of these kinds of things.

• 40:05Henry Washington?

  Conferences are great for the networking and the relationships that you build with the people at the conference. If you're able to build the relationships and maintain the relationships post the conference. But everything cool that's happened to me in my investing life has happened because of a relationship I met at a conference. Like literally almost everything.

• 40:29Dave Meyer?

  So many.

• 40:29Henry Washington?

  Like I'm on this podcast with you as a co-host because of going to the very first BiggerPockets conference in Nashville, the first like big official. Like that is, that is literally how I got here because I went to that conference and I met people at that conference who I stayed in contact with, and that's how I got to be here. I've gotten to go to so many cool places. I've gotten to buy cool properties. I've gotten to meet cool accountability partners. I've done so many amazing things, all because I attended conferences. It is, it is by far been the best money I've spent on my real estate education is tickets and attending conferences.

• 41:10Dave Meyer?

  You know, if I had to pick one place to learn from here until forever, obviously I love BPCon, but like I would just pick conferences in general. Cause I just think it combines all the important elements of real estate into one thing. If you want to grab tickets, still available for BPCon, go to biggerpockets.com/conference. And Henry and I will obviously be there hanging out, teaching, learning, networking, with tons and tons, dozens of other expert speakers as well, and your peers. Like I said earlier, and I mean this, you learn as much from your peers as you do from experts. It's different things, but it's just as important.

• 41:45Henry Washington?

  Awesome. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast. I hope we have helped you by putting some framework around real estate education. Hopefully you have a better idea of where to start, what information you should get from certain resources, when it makes sense to pay for education, when it doesn't. But it's all you. It's your education. It's your real estate investing career. So pick the path that makes the most sense to you. As always, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast, and Dave and I will see you on the next episode.

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