Hunter is a young investor, but he’s got his head on straight. He’s ambitious, methodical, and passionate about turning his current house-hacking strategy into a full-time investing career. He owns a duplex down the street from me, where he lives in one unit and rents out the other, and we run into each other from time-to-time. Kids today are pretty creative, even when it comes to getting their foot in the investing door. I admire him for doing whatever it takes to get started.

Last time I saw him, Hunter asked a question that he had been mulling over for weeks. He said that he wanted to grow his real estate investments by buying, renovating, and selling houses for profit, like me, but that making the leap was intimidating. He wondered if I could help him find a real estate investing mentor to support him through shifting his strategy and what I thought, generally, about mentorship as a means for taking your business to the next level.

Places to Find a Real Estate Investing Mentor

I told Hunter that succeeding as a real estate investor doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Even the best of us have gotten to where we are today because someone along the way helped to get us there. The right training, tools, and resources will certainly help you turn flipping houses into a good business like I have. But, more often than not, it’s one-on-one mentoring that can kick your investing career into high gear or help you change direction when it’s time. The guidance of a mentor can be critical to helping you overcome any bumps in the road that might otherwise slow you down or stop you in your tracks.

However, it can be tricky to find a legitimate mentor who has years of in-the-field experience investing in real estate and who is properly trained—and interested—in passing that experience along. If they’ve got all that, then it’s entirely possible they won’t have the time because they’re actively investing or mentoring someone else. Even when they do have time for you, it can still be difficult to trust whether a mentor is offering advice that is best suited for propelling your career forward, rather than their own. You never want to have to worry about your mentor’s motives when you’re already concerned about getting, or keeping, your own career on track.

So, where can you find a real estate investing mentor who fits the full bill and serves your area? There are a few places you could look.

• Online. The first, and probably easiest, place to look is online. A quick Google search will yield several million results that include ads for real estate investor training programs, online discussion threads, and investor blogs all addressing the topic of how, and where, to find the best mentors. A lot of real estate investing mentors will also advertise within each of these forums. Unfortunately, when it comes to using the web as a source for finding a legitimate mentor, it can take a lot of time and effort to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is a lot of distracting noise online and, sometimes, deliberately misleading information. So, you’ll have to put in the time to ensure you don’t get taken for a ride. But, with several million search results to go through, you’d better strap in and get comfortable because it’s gonna take a while.
• Associations and Clubs. Another option for finding a mentor is to narrow your focus specifically to associations and clubs. Most cities have local chapters for national industry-related associations, like the Real Estate Investors Association (REIA), as well as several locally-based real estate investor clubs, that offer networking events, training materials, and, sometimes, mentorship programs. They’re usually easy to join and are relatively inexpensive. If they don’t offer access to one-on-one mentoring as a part of membership, it’s always possible you’ll find a more experienced investor at one of the meetings or events who’d be willing to mentor you. But, you’ll likely have to join multiple groups and attend many meetings to increase your chances of finding a seasoned investor who wants to mentor you. And, that’s particularly hard to do when it’s mostly new and inexperienced investors who tend to make up the majority of the membership.
• Investing Firms. As a third alternative, you could seek out mentorship programs that are offered as a part of the real estate investor training courses that some investing firms provide. The benefit of taking this track is that, as a part of your overall training, you could get to observe and even participate in one of the firm’s projects to gain more hands-on experience. With a mentor by your side, you can ask all the questions you need to understand the nuances of how they run their business. Then, you can apply their theories to your choices to see if they also work for you. You will pay a pretty penny for the privilege of working with these firms, however—sometimes as much as $100K, depending on how much access you want to your mentor. On the low end, your cost may not be more than $5,000–10,000, but the time you get with your mentor for this price won’t be more than a couple of hours a month. In my book, that’s still a lot of money to pay for what amounts to very little service.

As you’ve probably started to notice, finding an experienced real estate investing mentor you can trust—and who is affordable—can seem like finding a needle in an awfully big haystack. But, I assure you, it’s not impossible. You’ve got one more option that’s tailor-fitted to help both new and more experienced investors get their career off the ground or keep it growing smoothly—wherever you need.

A One-on-One Real Estate Investing Mentor Who’s Invested in You

HomeVestors® Development Agents are available for expert one-on-one mentoring for every independently owned and operated HomeVestors® franchisee. Whether you’ve just joined the team or have been around for years, as a franchisee you get guidance, advice, and critical feedback on a variety of situations that may impact your business. Local franchisees in your market are also generally willing to help, too. When an unforeseen issue creeps up and surprises you on a deal, for example, you’ll can reach out for help solving that problem—and quickly. It’s as simple as that. I know, because when I first started investing in real estate as an independently owned and operated HomeVestors® franchisee, I called my Development Agent daily. Now that I’ve been doing this for a while, new investors, like Hunter, call me.

The best place to find a real estate investing mentor who’s invested in you is at HomeVestors®. Call the team today to discuss how you can start your new career or take it to the next level.

Each franchise office is independently owned and operated.