A question from a reader:

Brian,

Love your blog. I’m devouring the information.

I really want to get into the property market and have a little saved for a down payment.

However, in my state (Australia) I have only been able to find 2 deals that has positive cash flow in the last 6 months. I put an offer in on one of them but didn’t get it. It was subsequently sold at a higher price that made it negative cash flow. The other was bought day 1. The rest are negative where I would have to pay weekly repayments. Not good.

Perhaps Im looking in the wrong places. Perhaps Im not thinking out side the square.

I would love some help!

Cheers,
O.P.

Hi O.P.,

Your dilemma reminds me of what I was looking at 6 months ago. I looked at a ton of houses before I finally found one that cash flowed. I felt really lucky to find that one deal and I thought it would be equally hard to find another one.

But I was totally wrong, because once I got a couple of good mentors, and they showed me a few things, I realized that on any given day in the city there were probably 20 or 30 good deals that would cash flow. They would go fast, and a few days later, 20 more would be there. I’m serious…I couldn’t believe it at first. I still meet guys almost every week who I talk to and they tell me “I tried that and there are no good deals”. They are totally convinced just like I was.

I don’t know your particular market, and the tools to be used there are probably different. But I can tell you this…don’t try to figure it out on your own. Spend the next month or so just trying to find a good mentor.

Find someone who is earning a really good living from real estate, and don’t be afraid to ask them tough questions like what their net worth is, how much passive income they make each month from real estate etc. Then just be perfectly honest and tell them that you have no idea what you are doing, but that you are very eager to learn, and if they have any suggestions you would really appreciate it.

Then do what they say and report back to them. They will probably give you some little test (a book to read, a test to take, etc) to see if you are serious. Invest the time.

This is how I got the CEO of the largest commercial real estate company in Houston to be my mentor, and (partially) how I got my other mentor who owns over 2000 units in Houston.

Best of luck!
Brian