I'm 21; Own a House; Can I Start A Real Estate Development Career Path?
by Bill Short
(LA, California, USA)
Colm,
I have been extremely interested in real estate, and more specifically Real Estate Development.
I am currently 21 years old and own my own house (will be a year in August). Is it possible for me to get started in this career path at my age and with little expertise?
Answer My quick answer is that age is not really relevant in the development industry.
The distinguishing feature however is knowledge. As age does not prevent you from acquiring knowledge, I urge you to take this 'knowledge route' as the first stage of your development career.
I have an old saying that goes, "anybody can spend money" ... in development, the trick is "getting it all back plus a bit more for profit."
It is the knowledge that covers the second part of that saying. By now you have found that there is very little knowledge available on the Internet that you can actually use to create a development in a professional manner, except for my e-course.
I was amazed to find that this is the situation having regard to the fact that the development industry on a worldwide basis is truly massive.
I have come to the conclusion that professional developer is like myself, are more interested in creating developments to be bothered with writing e-courses for people.
I seem to be out of step in this regard and set about sharing my knowledge approximately four years ago in 2003. This work has now spread to 106 countries including every state in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland.
So at your age and with a property already purchased, I urge you to spend your time acquiring the knowledge before you start getting into real estate development.
I say this because once you have bought a property for development and you understand what you are doing, you will see that the project has a momentum of its own, which of course is driven by the borrowings from a bank.
I hope these few comments have helped you.