Where Do I Find A Real Estate Mentor

Where do I find a ( … ) — insert coach, mentor, guide, someone to answer my questions?

I get this question several times a year. Just this weekend:

"I'm eager to jump in and avoid the analysis paralysis that's tripped me up before. My goal is to rehab my first house before summer — but I still feel unsure where to start."

They went on to ask if they could shadow someone experienced inside the MAREI network. Fair ask. But before you go looking for a mentor, let's make sure a mentor is what you actually need.

Do You Need a Mentor — or Something Else?

Most new investors follow the same path:

1. Consume a ton of free information online and get hooked on the idea of real estate.
2. Find a community where you can learn all the ways to invest (like MAREI).
3. Attend a training class on "The One" — the niche that checks all your boxes — and take a lot of notes.
4. Head out to do it … and realize you're not sure how.
5. Attend the next class, which now also looks like "The One," and get more confused than before.

So you think: I need a mentor. Or I need a coach!

But do you? If you read "Do You Really Need a Mentor" by Vena Jones-Cox — one of my mentors, by the way — you'll see that a mentor isn't the person who teaches you how to do real estate or answers your day-to-day questions. A mentor is someone deeply experienced in the exact thing you want to do, who helps you figure things out at the big-picture level. And that access gets expensive.

You Might Need a Coach

Maybe what you need is a coach. Someone to bounce ideas off, run numbers with, ask questions of, and get a little hand-holding from. If this sounds like you, look at MAREI's Express Success Coaching Program:

• You get the basic idea of what you want to do, but there are gaps in your knowledge.
• You're pretty sure real estate is your thing and you've found your niche — but you haven't done a deal, or haven't done many.
• You want help with the specific thing you're learning, not a sit-down about your whole life plan.
• You don't have mentor money — mentoring starts expensive and climbs from there. Think four or five zeros.

Do You Need a Training Course Instead?

Go back to that "attend a training class" step:

• What did you do there — take a lot of notes?
• Did you buy the training course?
• Did you open it and actually work through it?

If you didn't buy the course, go back to wherever that class was and find out if you still can. That package deal you didn't want to spend money on is often the best money you'll spend — a good course takes you A to Z on getting your first deal done in that niche. Would you rather spend $1,000 on a course to learn short sales aren't for you, or $50,000 on a mentoring program to figure out the same thing?

Case in point: I bought a course on note investing. Interesting stuff — it came with a 3-day boot camp, and I went. All in, about $1,000. The trainer offered a mentoring program for $24,000. We bought it and dug in, and found that while notes are a great way to make money, what we were already doing was faster and easier for us.

We did a few note deals and more than paid for that mentoring — we even hold several cash-flowing notes today. But do we do notes? No. And that's a $24,000 lesson we're glad we learned before betting the business on it.

And if you did buy a course and never worked through it — why not? Go dig it out and start over. Or if you didn't like it, ask yourself: was it the niche, or was it the course? There may be a better course out there.

What You Really Need Is a Community

If you've been at this a while, know exactly what you want to do, and need high-level help doing it — consider a mentor. But if you're newer, here's the order I'd run:

1. Join a community and start asking questions from day one.
2. Start with training.
3. Take action on that training.
4. Lean on your community.
5. Then, maybe, consider a coach.

A community makes or breaks your investing journey. These are the people in the trenches doing what you want to do, day in and day out. They won't teach you A to Z — that's what a course is for — but they'll give you the nudge you need, right when you need it. So ask questions!

As a MAREI member, I'm glad to talk with people at meetings or in the forums about questions like:

• What ratio are lenders using right now — 70% of ARV? 60%? 80%?
• Where do you go to buy [that product, service, or tool]?
• Can you run these numbers with me?

Make the Most of a Community

1. Join one where active investors actually show up.
2. Take every training that fits your niche.
3. Buy a course and learn the fundamentals.
4. Come to in-person meetings with your top questions ready — and get there early to network for the answers.
5. Use the Facebook group. MAREI's has 15,000 members, including top gurus, coaches, and mentors who'll answer questions for free — up to a point.

When you're at an event, look for the circles of people around the room. The folks with the answers always have a circle around them — that's the tell. Look to the vendors at the tables, too; they know a lot, and they know everybody. Go talk to them. Whatever you do, don't sit and wait for the meeting to start. That first hour is your goldmine of free knowledge — but you have to go get it.

What Do You Need?

• Knowledge: Consume everything you can until your focus comes into view. Get to REIA meetings, workshops, and master classes. Lurk in the forums.
• Training: Once you've picked a focus, invest in a course or two. Need a suggestion? Just ask.
• Action: Go do it. You'll either succeed or learn — but only if you take action.
• Community: Put your training to work and ask questions in the forums and at meetings.
• Coaching: If that's what you need, look at MAREI's Express Success program.
• Mentoring: Once you've found your footing, then a mentor might be the move.

Article written by MAREI Co-Founder Kim Tucker, who has led the community with her husband Don since 2004. One of her mentors is Vena Jones-Cox. Don and Kim buy houses — if you have one to sell, visit kcmoHomeBuyer.com.