Posted by David Butler America’s Note Network on April 15, 2000 at 14:44:53:
Hello Aaron,
Well, you certainly want to cover a lot of ground! Couple of basics should hold up well for you. First, the Sheets course gives you a good starting point. You will find that as you keep going forward in this business, you will keep learning. You will have to, in order to succeed. There are many excellent courses out there that can help you, and of course, there are some poor ones too… but you’ll find what works best for you, over time. Fortunately, a lot can be gained for free these days. Message boards such as CREONLINE and elsewhere offer tons of information to sort through, and you will see a lot of enlightened discussion that acts like a pseudo-seminar for you.
In fact, you will be well-served by doing something not enough beginners do. Most sites, CREONLINE included, have search engines for their archives. Many beginners jump right in with questions that have been asked a thousand times. That will take you forever. Write down a list of questions, and research the archives for the answers. You’ll cover a lot more ground a lot more quickly, and you can learn a great deal for each question at your own leisure. You’ll also run into questions that you hadn’t thought of, and quickly add to your knowledge by studying those as well!
You could spend literally days just reviewing these sites on any aspect you are intersted in, and darn near put together your own complete free seminar… and a real life seminar at that.
In addition, these sites offer reams of free “How-To-Reports”. Granted, they don’t give away the whole ball of wax, but in total, a guy can get himself pretty well grounded by studying all of this material that he can get his hands on, even as he moves forward with his investing activities.
Keep in mind that all courses lack something. No one course can be all things for all people. As with all courses, many people think Sheets’ courses aren’t worth the paper they are written on. Many others, right here on these boards, have made fortunes starting out with Sheets’ courses.
Your own temperament will have a lot more to do with your success. The trick is really, to get well grounded, and then get going… and then keep learning and studying as you go.
Funny, for some reason I found myself glancing around my own office last nite, looking at two huge book cases of all the books and courses I have sitting there from the past 23 years. I have probably spent close to $8,000 to $9,000 on this stuff, counting the many outdated books that have been donated to libraries, and not counting the many books and course that I returned. (not all courses suit everybody;-))
Law, landlording, tenants’ rights, finance, creative finance, real estate investing, land development, rehabbing, taxation, real estate taxation, mobilehome investing, discounted note investing, and on and on.
Some have been more useful than others, all have been helpful one way or another over the years.
Just a few months ago, I purchased right off this site, an excellent course on self directed retirement planning, and another on land trusts. Both have been exceedingly helpful for the new things I am doing this year!
Back to your temperament… I have done just about a little of everything, and a lot of somethings. I have owned and managed properties for myself and others. I have flipped. I have done a few foreclosures, and both held and flipped those properties. I have done a couple of real minor rehabs, and probably should have been more active with that, given my wife’s talents. Before we got together 22 years ago, she had done some of those for a couple of contractors and made a pile of money at it. We have talked about doing it together, yet for some reason, we just never got it done. On the other hand, over the years we have teamed up to keep our rentals in top shape.
Probably the best rule to follow is invest in what you know, and you can never know enough.
By the way, you may want to click on our banner above, and explore our free library as well. It is packed with tons of free articles and reports on the private finance industry, investing, and personal finance issues as well.
Hope this helps, and best of luck to you.
David P. Butler, Vice President, Broker Relations