Are you seeking a good education pertaining to the commercial real estate business? Pam Goodwin educates listeners in her third guest appearance on the Champions DFW Commercial Real Estate radio show and podcast. Co-hosting the program are Jim Kelley of Champions DFW and Ron Taylor of 620 AM KEXB (in Dallas / Fort Worth). Take a look at this excerpt from the show and then enjoy a good education of the commercial real estate business with a free podcast download.
Jim Kelley: How would you recommend or suggest a person that’s not been in commercial real estate to get started? Where do they go? Where do they look to? I mean, obviously, they can do some reading…please feel free to share about your books and your insights, but how do they get started in commercial real estate?
Pam Goodwin: What I would highly recommend is, if you can, to start young. For example, if you want to go buy $100,000 worth of stocks or mutual funds, you need $100,000. But if you want to buy your first piece of real estate, you only need sometimes 10 or 20% down. So you may only need $10,000 or $20,000 and you have $100,000 asset. And the first thing I would advise to do of someone looking to get into real estate is check with your friends and family.
You’ll find out that a lot of people do own a building, own land, and start asking a lot of questions. And then the next best thing to do is, if you have interest, is just to go take a few classes. Start with one class, residential or commercial class, at one of the local Champion School of Real Estate and see if you like it and you will meet a ton of people in a one-day event that can definitely help you get started.
Jim Kelley: Well, I think it’s a great suggestion beyond just learning some of the educational baselines but get involved with people because, as you mentioned, be it family, owning property, friends, the real estate business is about relationships. There’s not one conversation, one deal that I’ve ever worked on that wasn’t tied to a person or a relationship. And so, I think it’s all about networking. I become recently a member of BOMA Organization. They’ve got a lot of networking events throughout the year that you can go to. You can get involved. You can meet with like-minded individuals, and a lot of them may not have invested in real estate. So I think that’s a great suggestion. Any other suggestions in terms of some of your materials? Is that a good place for someone to start as well? You want to mention both your books and your new product?
Pam Goodwin: Right. I have a new course coming out. You’re the first to really hear about it. It’s, “How to Win in Commercial Real Estate: Zero to a Million Dollars with Just One Deal.” We talk about, for example, how to find those hidden opportunities that… Most of the good properties to buy are not listed. They do not have a “For Sale” sign on them, but one thing I would highly recommend is, because you know…just start in your own neighborhood, your own back yard. But what I’d highly recommend is going on the web and finding your city economic development director and go set up a meeting with them. They love to meet with people. They will help you. They will tell you what tenants are looking in the area and just start to meet them and you’ll get a really good education because it’s always really good to find the opportunity that you know best driving around.
You know, “Hey, that gas station, it used to be a gas station, then it’s a bank, but now that bank needs to be a new fast food user because that’s the highest growing sector today are restaurants.” And so you know exactly, “I wish I had a Starbucks. I wish I had a Chick-fil-A,” and you could develop that yourselves because you know that neighborhood inside out.
For a good education of the commercial real estate business: Download the podcast and any of the Champions podcasts, for free, on iTunes, here.
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