How Long Will it Take Me to Make Money in Real Estate Investing, Starting with No Cash or Credit?
Today I wanna deal with the question “Todd, how long will it take me to make money in real estate investing using your methods?”
Now first of all, as you may or may not know, I teach people how to invest in real estate without using your own cash or credit.
In this type of real estate investing, a lot of gurus are selling you on the idea that you’re gonna get rich in 30 days, and that’s just a bunch of foolishness.
They want you to think that everything is easy, and everything always works out perfectly the way it does in “Seminar Land”, because that helps them sell a lot of courses and books.
But I’m gonna tell you the truth!
Unlike all these other gurus that are gonna tell you that it’s really easy… the reality is that understanding real estate investing, and actually doing real estate investing is “simple” but it’s not “easy”. There’s time involved, there’s effort involved, and there are processes involved.
So a realistic target starting from scratch is 7 months of focused effort. And I’m gonna break down what’s gonna happen in those 7 months.
Now when I say seven months of focused effort… I want you to understand me clearly. I say seven months of FOCUSED effort because the reality is, MOST people… when it comes to getting rich, achieving financial freedom, etc.… do not put in focused effort!
It’s just like going to the gym and getting in shape… most people don’t put in the focused effort! They start to put in a LITTLE effort, or maybe even a LOT of effort in the beginning, and then they ALLOW themselves to get distracted.
So then they find themselves putting in “distracted” effort, or “inconsistent” effort, or “half-hearted” effort… but I’m talking about seven months of FOCUSED effort.
So if you can put in seven months of focused effort, then you can realistically be cashing your first big check within those first 7 months… or your next 7 months if you’ve been following some other program up until now, and you’re just getting started with my methods.
Month 1… Learning
And I’m even going to give you the first month just for studying courses and preparing yourself! You need to do a full month of education… so my 7-month timeframe assumes that you don’t actually start to implement anything in the first month!
Months 2-4… Getting In
Then it might take you 2-to-3 months to get a property under contract. When I say “under contract” I mean buying and/or controlling the house where your buying / exit strategy is going to be based on…
✅ 1. Wholesaling
✅ 2. Lease Options
✅ 3. Getting the Deed (aka Subject To)
✅ 4. And Seller Financing
Realistically it could even be for Fixing and Flipping (aka Retailing), or even a cash flow rental property.
Obviously, if you’re Fixing and Flipping (Retailing) then during that 2-3-month period, you’re gonna need to rehab the property, which would extend your 7-month period by the amount of time it takes you to rehab the property. So let’s say it takes you 2 months to rehab the property, then your 7-month period just became 9 months. Does that make sense?
Now with the other methods that I mentioned, you don’t necessarily need to rehab the property in that time period… and you shouldn’t. Actually, you should be doing very little or no work on the property with the other strategies that I mentioned.
So I’ve allotted you a full 2-to-3 months to get this property under contract and get it ready to sell.
Months 5-7… Getting Out and Getting Paid
Then you have another 2-to-3 months to get the property marketed, to find a Buyer (or Tenant/Buyer, or Tenant), and get paid!
7-Month Process Recap
So that’s your 7-month process…
1. The 1st month is studying, education, and learning.
2. Then you have 2-to-3 months to get a property under contract and get control of the property
3. And then you have another 2-to-3 months to market the property, and get it sold or rented, and get paid
Alright? That’s a very realistic timeframe to do your first or next deal… involving no cash and no credit.
The Timing Could Vary… Slower or Faster
Again, 7 months is a very realistic timeframe, so don’t get sucked in by these gurus that are telling you that you will DEFINITELY do everything in 30 days.
“Can” it happen in 30 days? Yes. Have I had it happen? Obviously, I do it all the time, but I’ve been doing this and teaching this for many years.
And the answer is “no”, it probably won’t work… but if you move away it’ll probably start working! LOL
But seriously, if there are houses where you live, then yes, the methods that I teach of buying property without cash or credit will definitely work in the area that you live!
That little joke comes from the fact that most people are always looking for an excuse to talk themselves out of their own success… Whereas successful people are always looking to be the exception to the rules of mediocrity, that others choose to live by.
Anywhere there are houses, there’s always a demand for real estate investing, because everybody’s gotta live somewhere.
And the situations that allow us to buy houses without cash or credit occur to everybody, in every area.
People are having job transfers, people are losing their jobs, people are getting promoted, people are getting demoted.
People are dying, people are being born. As the family expands, the family may need to get a bigger house, and eventually they may need to move to a different school district.
When there’s a death in the family and the deceased owned real estate, that often creates probate and estate settlement situations.
Now as far as from the standpoint of my students…
I have students that do deals in less than 30 days from the time they start marketing, and I have students that do deals that take them much longer.
Case Study (Possible but Not Typical)
So for example I had one student, and she only had a marketing budget of about $15. I’m not talking about $15 a month… I’m talking about $15 PERIOD. That’s literally all she had to spend on marketing to find/buy her first deal!
So she bought some bandit signs, and we put those bandit signs out. With just $15 you can’t buy that many bandit signs, right ??? So I think she only had about 10 signs!
So starting with $15 and only 10 signs… we got calls and results in just 2 weeks!
Notice, the signs were only out there 2 weeks, right, because if you know anything about bandit signs, then you know that they’ve got a short life span a lot of times… depend on where you put them.
That’s why they’re called “bandit” signs, because a lot of people have a lot of haterism toward the signs, because they see them as pollution, so they may steal them or deface them. They may or may not be technically against the city ordinances in your area, as they are in some areas where I live.
There are ways to get around that, so that has never stopped me from putting them out, but that’ll be covered in another video or blog post.
Now back to our story…
So in fact I think it was only about a week and a half… about 10 days these signs were out before they disappeared.
And so from those signs being out for just a 10-day period, we got 2 houses that we put under contract!
So remember that I allotted you 3 full months to get 1 house under contract to buy, beginning from the time that you started your marketing.
In this case, we got the leads within 10 days, and it took us a few more days to actually get the contracts written and signed. We had to schedule with the owners, go see the houses, make the offers, they had to think about it, etc. So just to be super conservative, let’s just call it 21 days. That’s a lot faster than 3 full months, right?
Back to Reality
So, yes, things can happen a lot faster, but I’m not gonna preach to you that this is what you should expect. Like I said a very realistic time frame is about seven months.
So what’s going on during this time?
First of all, after your study period, then you get into your first 2-to-3 months where you’re trying to get a deal on a contract, you’ve got to have marketing, right?
So you’re gonna put your marketing out there and, no, it’s probably not gonna happen where you’re gonna get two quick contracts after just 10 days’ worth of effort, like what I just described in the case study. That’s not gonna be the norm.
So you’re gonna have times where you may become impatient or frustrated… and times when you’re gonna be contacting people, and people aren’t gonna be calling you back.
You’re gonna have times when they’re gonna tell you that they don’t want to sell their vacant houses, even if it’s been sitting there vacant for years, which makes absolutely no sense.
You’re gonna have times when you’re dealing with For Sale By Owners (FSBOs) that actually do have their property on the market, and they’re gonna go tell you to jump in a lake because they’re not interested in what you’re offering them… maybe your cash offer is too low, or they have no interest in doing any creative terms, etc.
So like I always say, when you’re approaching a Seller about making an offer on their house, they can only tell you one of a few things…
1. They can tell you “Yes”, and obviously that’s what you want to hear
2. They can tell you “No”
3. Or they can tell you “H-to-the-No” … (or a worse form of that) … LOL
Okay? So they can either be nice and polite and tell you “No”, or they can tell you “No” in a rude and angry way, or they can give you a “Yes”, or they can tell you “Maybe” or “I’ll think about it” or something like that.
So the point is that you’ve got to go through some “No’s” before you get to some “Yeses”, and in the meantime, you’re gonna be learning the process. It’s gonna take you some time, and everything’s not gonna happen overnight.
So during that first 2-to-3-month timeframe, you’ve got to get your marketing out there, and you’ve got to talk to some Sellers, and you’ve got to deal with some rejection.
And you’ve gotta deal with some frustration because you’re gonna be wanting stuff to happen overnight, and it’s probably not gonna happen overnight.
And the same goes when you go to liquidate the property and get paid, right? You’re gonna be marketing to potential Buyers and Tenant/Buyers, and some people are gonna be trying to lowball you, and they’re not gonna want to offer you what you want, or what you need to get for the property to make it worth your time.
So, yes, it’s gonna take some time before all the pieces come together and you put that first big check in your bank account.
But nonetheless, this is a million-dollar business when you treat it as such, and it’s the greatest business on the planet!
Because Real Estate has been around since the Garden of Eden, and it’ll be here until Jesus comes back, and everybody needs a place to live!
So this answers the question “How Long Will It Take Me To Make Money In Real Estate Investing?” And the short answer is that a very realistic target is seven months of FOCUSED EFFORT, using no cash and no credit!
###
Ready to step up your game?
Check out my step-by-step real estate investing courses for both beginner and advanced investors.
Are you looking for a 1-On-1 real estate investing mentor?
Check out my Monthly Coaching and/or Hourly Consulting Programs.
Today I wanna deal with the question “Todd, how long will it take me to make money in real estate investing using your methods?”
Now first of all, as you may or may not know, I teach people how to invest in real estate without using your own cash or credit.
In this type of real estate investing, a lot of gurus are selling you on the idea that you’re gonna get rich in 30 days, and that’s just a bunch of foolishness.
They want you to think that everything is easy, and everything always works out perfectly the way it does in “Seminar Land”, because that helps them sell a lot of courses and books.
But I’m gonna tell you the truth!
Unlike all these other gurus that are gonna tell you that it’s really easy… the reality is that understanding real estate investing, and actually doing real estate investing is “simple” but it’s not “easy”. There’s time involved, there’s effort involved, and there are processes involved.
So a realistic target starting from scratch is 7 months of focused effort. And I’m gonna break down what’s gonna happen in those 7 months.
Now when I say seven months of focused effort… I want you to understand me clearly. I say seven months of FOCUSED effort because the reality is, MOST people… when it comes to getting rich, achieving financial freedom, etc.… do not put in focused effort!
It’s just like going to the gym and getting in shape… most people don’t put in focused effort! They start to put in a LITTLE effort, or maybe even a LOT of effort in the beginning, and then they ALLOW themselves to get distracted.
So then they find themselves putting in “distracted” effort, or “inconsistent” effort, or “half-hearted” effort… but I’m talking about seven months of FOCUSED effort.
So if you can put in seven months of focused effort, then you can realistically be cashing your first big check within those first 7 months… or your next 7 months if you’ve been following some other program up until now, and you’re just getting started with my methods.
Month 1… Learning
And I’m even going to give you the first month just for studying courses and preparing yourself! You need to do a full month of education… so my 7-month timeframe assumes that you don’t actually start to implement anything in the first month!
Months 2-4… Getting In
Then it might take you 2-to-3 months to get a property under contract. When I say “under contract” I mean buying and/or controlling the house where your buying / exit strategy is going to be based on…
✅ 1. Wholesaling
✅ 2. Lease Options
✅ 3. Getting the Deed (aka Subject To)
✅ 4. And Seller Financing
Realistically it could even be for Fixing and Flipping (aka Retailing), or even a cash flow rental property.
Obviously, if you’re Fixing and Flipping (Retailing) then during that 2-3-month period, you’re gonna need to rehab the property, which would extend your 7-month period by the amount of time it takes you to rehab the property. So let’s say it takes you 2 months to rehab the property, then your 7-month period just became 9 months. Does that make sense?
Now with the other methods that I mentioned, you don’t necessarily need to rehab the property in that time period… and you shouldn’t. Actually, you should be doing very little or no work on the property with the other strategies that I mentioned.
So I’ve allotted you a full 2-to-3 months to get this property under contract and get it ready to sell.
Months 5-7… Getting Out and Getting Paid
Then you have another 2-to-3 months to get the property marketed, to find a Buyer (or Tenant/Buyer, or Tenant), and get paid!
7-Month Process Recap
So that’s your 7-month process…
1. The 1st month is studying, education, and learning.
2. Then you have 2-to-3 months to get a property under contract and get control of the property
3. And then you have another 2-to-3 months to market the property, and get it sold or rented, and get paid
Alright? That’s a very realistic timeframe to do your first or next deal… involving no cash and no credit.
The Timing Could Vary… Slower or Faster
Again, 7 months is a very realistic timeframe, so don’t get sucked in by these gurus that are telling you that you will DEFINITELY do everything in 30 days.
“Can” it happen in 30 days? Yes. Have I had it happen? Obviously, I do it all the time, but I’ve been doing this and teaching this for many years.
Now as far as from the standpoint of my students…
I have students that do deals in less than 30 days from the time they start marketing, and I have students that do deals that take them much longer.
Case Study (Possible but Not Typical)
So for example I had one student, and she only had a marketing budget of about $15. I’m not talking about $15 a month… I’m talking about $15 PERIOD. That’s literally all she had to spend on marketing to find/buy her first deal!
So she bought some bandit signs, and we put those bandit signs out. With just $15 you can’t buy that many bandit signs, right ??? So I think she only had about 10 signs!
So starting with $15 and only 10 signs… we got calls and results in just 2 weeks!
Notice, the signs were only out there 2 weeks, right, because if you know anything about bandit signs, then you know that they’ve got a short life span a lot of times… depend on where you put them.
That’s why they’re called “bandit” signs, because a lot of people have a lot of haterism toward the signs, because they see them as pollution, so they may steal them or deface them. They may or may not be technically against the city ordinances in your area, as they are in some areas where I live.
There are ways to get around that, so that has never stopped me from putting them out, but that’ll be covered in another video or blog post.
Now back to our story…
So in fact I think it was only about a week and a half… about 10 days these signs were out before they disappeared.
And so from those signs being out for just a 10-day period, we got 2 houses that we put under contract!
So remember that I allotted you 3 full months to get 1 house under contract to buy, beginning from the time that you started your marketing.
In this case, we got the leads within 10 days, and it took us a few more days to actually get the contracts written and signed. We had to schedule with the owners, go see the houses, make the offers, they had to think about it, etc. So just to be super conservative, let’s just call it 21 days. That’s a lot faster than 3 full months, right?
Back to Reality
So, yes, things can happen a lot faster, but I’m not gonna preach to you that this is what you should expect. Like I said a very realistic time frame is about seven months.
So what’s going on during this time?
First of all, after your study period, then you get into your first 2-to-3 months where you’re trying to get a deal on a contract, you’ve got to have marketing, right?
So you’re gonna put your marketing out there and, no, it’s probably not gonna happen where you’re gonna get two quick contracts after just 10 days’ worth of effort, like what I just described in the case study. That’s not gonna be the norm.
So you’re gonna have times where you may become impatient or frustrated… and times when you’re gonna be contacting people, and people aren’t gonna be calling you back.
You’re gonna have times when they’re gonna tell you that they don’t want to sell their vacant houses, even if it’s been sitting there vacant for years, which makes absolutely no sense.
You’re gonna have times when you’re dealing with For Sale By Owners (FSBOs) that actually do have their property on the market, and they’re gonna go tell you to jump in a lake because they’re not interested in what you’re offering them… maybe your cash offer is too low, or they have no interest in doing any creative terms, etc.
So like I always say, when you’re approaching a Seller about making an offer on their house, they can only tell you one of a few things…
1. They can tell you “Yes”, and obviously that’s what you want to hear
2. They can tell you “No”
3. Or they can tell you “H-to-the-No” … (or a worse form of that) … LOL
Okay? So they can either be nice and polite and tell you “No”, or they can tell you “No” in a rude and angry way, or they can give you a “Yes”, or they can tell you “Maybe” or “I’ll think about it” or something like that.
So the point is that you’ve got to go through some “No’s” before you get to some “Yeses”, and in the meantime you’re gonna be learning the process. It’s gonna take you some time, and everything’s not gonna happen overnight.
So during that first 2-to-3-month timeframe, you’ve got to get your marketing out there, and you’ve got to talk to some Sellers, and you’ve got to deal with some rejection.
And you’ve gotta deal with some frustration, because you’re gonna be wanting stuff to happen overnight, and it’s probably not gonna happen overnight.
And the same goes when you go to liquidate the property and get paid, right? You’re gonna be marketing to potential Buyers and Tenant/Buyers, and some people are gonna be trying to lowball you, and they’re not gonna want to offer you what you want, or what you need to get for the property to make it worth your time.
So, yes, it’s gonna take some time before all the pieces come together and you put that first big check in your bank account.
But nonetheless, this is a million-dollar business when you treat it as such, and it’s the greatest business on the planet!
Because Real Estate has been around since the Garden of Eden, and it’ll be here until Jesus comes back, and everybody needs a place to live!
So this answers the question “How Long Will It Take Me To Make Money In Real Estate Investing?” And the short answer is that a very realistic target is seven months of FOCUSED EFFORT, using no cash and no credit!
Ready to step up your game?
Check out my step-by-step real estate investing courses for both beginner and advanced investors.
Are you looking for a 1-On-1 real estate investing mentor?
Check out my Monthly Coaching and/or Hourly Consulting Programs.