How To Find a Real Estate Mentor

Are you wondering how to find a real estate mentor?

If you’re like most real estate investors, you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do, such as:

  • Learned the market
  • Gained an understanding of how to measure financial metrics
  • Started filling your deal pipeline

At this point, you wish you had someone with experience to bounce your ideas off. You tell yourself that having a mentor would give that extra piece of the success puzzle. 

In this article, we’ll show you how to find a real estate mentor. 

You’ll learn essential aspects of the process, such as types of mentorship, how to set expectations, the pros and cons of real estate mentorship, and where to find your mentor.

What Is a Real Estate Mentor?

You’ll typically find that a real estate mentor is older than you. This scenario doesn’t always play out, depending on your age when starting your real investing journey. However, a good mentor needs years of experience to help you through a variety of situations. 

Your mentor provides the following:

  • Guidance 
  • Feedback
  • Advice

As you learn how to find a real estate mentor, make sure you look for someone years ahead of you so you can benefit from the relationship through their experience.

Types of Mentorship

When finding a real estate mentor, you should know that different types of mentorship exist. Think through what you need based on your preferred learning style, educational requirements, and availability. Here are three types of real estate mentorship to consider:

Apprenticeships represent an excellent way to get started with investing. It’s a way to go along with your mentor so they can help you with hands-on advice. You might work at their real estate office to learn or go with them while they close deals. An internship like this lets you get your feet wet without jumping into your own sales immediately. 

1:1 coaching offers an excellent method for receiving mentorship. You might hop on regular zoom or phone calls to discuss upcoming deals you’re considering. Your mentor guides you with personalized advice about specific transactions. Regular coaching calls help you remain consistent. 

A third way to receive real estate mentoring enters the picture as group masterminds. These can work on zoom or even in person. A group of like-minded investors gets together, and they learn from the mentor. If you can’t find a local mentor, look at this option because the location doesn’t matter if you join a quality zoom group mastermind coaching program.

Go Into a Real Estate Mentorship with Reasonable Expectations

When you want to know how to find a real estate mentor, you should know that real estate mentors don’t enjoy babysitting their mentees. 

Mentorship starts a long-term business relationship. It takes time for a mentor to pass all their earned wisdom to you. They’ll provide guidance, but they won’t teach you everything. Your willingness to get your hands dirty in the real world must fill those gaps. 

These ideas should help you enter a mentoring relationship with the correct expectations. 

Find a mentor with similar core values. Life and business values often intersect when investing in real estate. You should have similar views about how to treat people and how to work deals fairly. 

You’ll benefit more from advice and guidance if your investment style and strategy match your mentor’s methods. 

A good mentor is a busy person. They’re working on their own deals. They have places to get to. Give your mentor a great reason to take you under their wing. Take action on their advice. Nothing frustrates a real estate mentor more than a mentee scared to enter the game. 

Look for ways to benefit your mentor as well. Can you help them with their deals? Make sure the relationship becomes a win/win situation.

Myths About Mentoring in Real Estate

Some people sit around thinking they’ll somehow get discovered by a mentor who walks up and offers the mentorship. That doesn’t happen in the real world. Go out and proactively search for a good mentor. 

It’s a myth that you ask someone to mentor you, and they instantly say yes. It’s probably happened a time or two. However, it’s more likely that you’ll first build a relationship with an investor who has experience. Then, that relationship turns into a mentor/mentee bond naturally over time. 

Mentorship in real estate isn’t a one-way street. While some mentees think it is, the best mentorships provide value to both parties involved. 

The biggest myth exists in the minds of some mentees who expect their mentors to provide direct “yes” or “no” answers about each deal. This won’t happen often. Sometimes a mentor will guide you into a situation, let you make a small mistake, and then use that as a lesson. 

Why Do You Want a Mentor?

It goes back to expectations. Ask yourself why you want a real estate mentor? If you expect a mentor to spoon-feed you information and deals, you need to adjust your thinking before engaging any potential mentor. 

It’s like Daniel and Mr. Myagi in The Karate Kid. Daniel wanted to learn to fight immediately. Mr. Myagi taught him the philosophy of karate first so that Daniel could become better in the long run. 

Use these questions to understand your personal investing philosophy and to decide if you’re ready for mentorship. 

  • Why are you investing in real estate?
  • How much prior success should your mentor possess?
  • Do you respect your mentor?
  • What’s your level of risk management? 

You can’t find the correct mentor for you if you’re wishy-washy about why you’re investing in the first place. What are your goals? Do you want to invest for long-term cash flow, or would you instead flip homes for immediate gains? Are you looking for a wholesale real estate mentor? 

The answers to those questions will dictate which mentor fits you best. 

Make sure you have faith in your mentor’s prior success. The definition of success varies from person to person. However, make sure that you have 100% confidence in your real estate mentor’s ability to take you where you want to go. 

It’s difficult to respect another investor entirely when you doubt their capabilities. You’ll end up second-guessing all their guidance and advice. 

Your mentor must respect you as well. If a real estate mentor thinks they are wasting their time with you, you aren’t going to receive value from the relationship. Make sure that mutual respect exists before committing to mentorship. 

Finding a mentor in real estate requires that you both come to the table with similar risk profiles. 

Every investment brings risk into the picture. Your success depends on minimizing risk while maximizing profits. There’s a risk involved with renting properties. What if you can’t fill a vacancy? Risk occurs with a flipping business. What if you uncover unexpected problems after closing?

Mutual respect can’t exist when your mentor values the buy and hold strategy, and you’re looking for a similar rush to winning in Vegas. 

Advantages and Disadvantages To Having a Mentor

As you learn more about how to find a real estate mentor, understand that pros and cons exist with a mentor/mentee relationship. 

Real estate mentors bring plenty of positives into your life as they shorten your learning curve, help you find great deals, and get you into profitable situations. 

Mentors don’t always offer similar benefits compared to others. Some mentors are expensive to hire. 

Let’s look at the pros and cons of working with a mentor so that you can be confident in your decision based on your requirements. 

Pros of Using a Real Estate Mentor

  • They provide structure to avoid mistakes while taking proper action. 
  • You get personalized 1:1 advice to guide you into achieving your cash flow goals.
  • A mentor can shorten your timeframe when learning investment details.

Cons of Using a Real Estate Mentor

  • Not every mentor is worth your time. Some teach more effectively than others. 
  • Some mentors may talk a big game without delivering results to your business. 
  • Some real investors charge tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What Should You Look For in a Real Estate Mentor?

Now that you know the pros and cons of working with a real estate mentor let’s equip you with ideas to help you understand how to identify quality mentors. 

  • Look for a mentor who possesses good communication skills, shows a passion for teaching passionate students, and brings a structured education system to the table. 
  • A mentor should have an expert understanding of real estate tax law. Can your mentor teach you how to defer capital gains, for instance, via a 1031 exchange? Do they know how to use deductions to reduce your rental property’s taxable income?
  • Find a real estate mentor who thoroughly understands your financial goals and investment objectives. With those goals in mind, ask them if they’re confident about advising you on the best way to look at adding value, protecting cash flow, and obtaining the proper financing. 
  • A great mentor offers strong people skills. They should exhibit high ethical standards and good listening skills. The best mentors are honest, positive, and patient. 
  • Make sure your real estate mentor will hold you accountable for your goals. You don’t want to work with someone who lets you slide back into bad habits or who doesn’t care when you let limiting beliefs stop you from progressing with investing. 
  • Your mentor should have insights and knowledge about tenant profiles, markets, and asset classes to most effectively guide you into the best investment opportunities.  
  • Look for a mentor familiar with analyzing rental properties. Do they know how to use metrics like net cash flow, IRR, cap rate, yield, and cash-on-cash?

Where To Find a Real Estate Mentor

You don’t necessarily need to pay for real estate mentorship. You might find a mentor by asking a real estate network colleague, a friend, a real estate agent, or a real estate broker to mentor you. 

Remember that all successful real estate mentors keep themselves busy. Some of them might not have the skills, desire, or time to mentor others. They might not feel like you’re ready for mentorship and will say no to you. 

One of the best ways to find a real estate mentor is to ask yourself how you can help their business before asking them to help you. 

If you don’t know anyone personally, then you can search for professional mentors. Check your local real estate investors association to see if they’ve set up a mentoring program. 

Search online for “Chicago rehabbing mentorship” or “Albany wholesaling mentor.” Other options include asking for referrals on BiggerPockets or LinkedIn. 

Tips For Getting the Most Out of Real Estate Mentorship

A lack of commitment hurts many mentees. Don’t go into a mentoring relationship unless you’re 100% committed to the process. It’s incredible how many people pay a lot of money for mentorship and then fail to put the advice into action. 

Use the resources provided by your mentor, whether that’s via:

  • 1:1 coaching
  • Written training
  • Video resources
  • Group coaching

Commit to learning the material to the best of your ability. Work to make sure it sinks into your brain effectively. 

After you learn new skills from your real estate mentor, go out and take the proper action. Following through on the activities brought forth by a mentor on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis will eventually get you where you want to go. If you’re unclear about your next steps, then speak up and ask your mentor for more clarity. 

Look at this experience like you’re going to college. Take advantage of all the information, advice, and guidance and give yourself the best chances for success. 

Conclusion 

Now you know how to find a mentor for real estate. Knowing how to do something and doing it in the real world is what separates successful investors from dreamers. 

Your next step is to determine why you’re investing in real estate. Get clarity there, and then start looking for the mentor who fits you best.

The Best Real Estate Agent Tools

A modern real estate agent needs cutting-edge tools to get ahead in this super-competitive market. Technology continues to develop and evolve more quickly than ever, and the best tools for real estate agents incorporate these online marketing tools into every successful listing.

Get Your own (Digital) Real Estate

To connect with prospective buyers, real estate agents will need to have a professional presence online. Having a professional website or portfolio will help agents build trusting relationships with clients and is one of the most essential tools for real estate agents.

If a real estate agent doesn’t yet have a piece of digital real estate, a site like Squarespace is a must-have tool for real estate agents to establish a website, with plans starting at $12 a month.  Consider uploading content like your current listings, an updated and detailed personal biography, and a blog with relevant information for buyers.

Cross-Post to all your Social Channels

A successful real estate agent is undoubtedly juggling multiple social media channels to connect with the right buyers.  To maximize your efforts as a modern real estate agent, it is essential to know what messages work best on which platform and when to schedule posts.

To best manage all of these needs of social media tools for real estate agents, consider downloading a free tool like Hootsuite.  Hootsuite allows users to schedule social media marketing messages well in advance and across all platforms in one convenient interface.

Have A Reliable Source of Leads

For any real estate agent to be successful, they will require a reliable source of motivated leads. Time is money, and focusing on the leads that are most likely to convert can mean the difference between success and failure.

Unless you’re the kind of agent who prefers doing everything by hand, including finding leads, you’ll want to sign up for a service which can provide a steady stream of motivated home sellers. Here at Agent’s Corner, that’s exactly what we focus on – delivering high quality motivated home seller leads. Using this kind of tool can help you focus on what you do best, while not worrying about running out of leads to work.

Reliably Store and Share your Files

For any listing, a real estate agent will be juggling photography, documents, contracts and other large digital files.  Ensuring these files are secure and conveniently accessible every time you need them is crucial, both to keep everything legal and confidential and to build trusting relationships with your clients.

Dropbox is cloud storage that allows you to store and share files of any size and file type and with anyone.  With 2GB of free storage to start and paid plans for more extensive storage options, this affordable solution can be used anywhere you can access a computer or via the mobile app.

Scan on the Go

Juggling lots of paperwork is just an ordinary day in the life of a real estate agent.  But often, those files need to be digitized to be efficiently shared, stored or signed.

With a convenient scanner app on your smartphone, like Cam Scanner, all your important and confidential documents can be easily scanned, stored, and emailed to yourself or a client.  This simple interface leads you through the scanning (similar to taking a photo), cropping and sharing of your important documents.

Calculate Fast

Helping your buyers keep their budget in mind is a critical part of building a trusting relationship with the client.  But many potential homeowners are unsure how to truly understand the complicated math involved in the most important purchase of their lives, leaving them struggling to calculate the mortgage they can afford.

A forward-thinking real estate agent can provide full service by assisting clients through this process, having a reliable mortgage calculator app downloaded on your smartphone.  Mortgage calculators help clients understand the realistic costs of the home they can afford and how much their monthly payments may be.

Upgrade your Notebook

Building a relationship with your potential buyers involves taking lots of notes about things like their budget, their needs, and which properties they have already visited.  Consider upgrading from an inefficient and flimsy paper notebook to the digital equivalent so you can perform at your peak.

Evernote is a digital filing system that organizes all notes into virtual notebooks that can be kept private or shared with others.  Consider maintaining a notebook for all of your clients and another Evernote notebook for tasks to serve as essential lead generation tools for real estate agents.

Easily Create Slick Designs

The modern real estate agent can stand out among the crowd with custom designs from online marketing tools for real estate agents.  And even if that sounds intimidating, there are websites available to help you quickly build brochures, social media images, and other collateral pieces.

The next time you need a custom image or updated piece of marketing collateral, try a website like Canva to help you create a professional design.  Canva does have a free version with limited functionality or a more robust option for an additional monthly fee.

Broadcast a Live Open House

Real estate is a global market, and the next homebuyer may live down the street, across the country or around the world!  Since open houses are such a crucial part of the purchasing process, live broadcasting is an important social media tool for real estate agents.

Most social media channels have a live function, including Instagram, Facebook or YouTube, so it is important to consider the audience when deciding on a social media platform for broadcasting live.  Use your phone or tablet to host an informal live open house and cross-post to your social media platforms.

Connect with Buyers

If you’re searching for the real estate agent must-have tools for this quickly changing housing environment, a newsletter is a great choice.  By designing a content-rich, custom newsletter, your clients see you as a trusted expert in the most important purchase of their lives.

There are many web-based email marketing software programs you can explore, but one of the most affordable and simple options is MailChimp.  With MailChimp as a part of your lead generation tools for real estate agents, you can easily send beautiful, custom email campaigns to all of your clients or targeted audiences and track all of the results.

Reach Clients Their Way

The housing market is changing rapidly, and a younger generation is excited to become homebuyers.  However, many of the traditional marketing tools for real estate agents, like newspaper ads or phone calls, can be intimidating or ineffective for this new audience.

Research an enhanced SMS texting service to help you reach clients the way they prefer to respond.  These services help you broadcast listings, open houses and other time-sensitive information to your entire audience or a selected group and still allows you to text your clients one-on-one.

Invest in Affordable Advertising

The modern real estate agent juggles so much content and valuable information they must use to reach as many potential buyers as possible.  An important social media marketing tool for real estate agents is choosing an advertising tool to amplify their messages to a larger audience.  Without these real estate agent tools, all of your previous efforts may be less effective.

Social media advertising is an affordable and precise online marketing tool for real estate agents that anyone can use.  Sharing photos or videos on a platform like Instagram can reach tens of thousands of users within as narrow of a demographic as you want.

Keep Everything Organized

A successful real estate agent needs a useful way to maintain a calendar and coordinate schedule openings for clients.  This is one of the most critical real estate agent organization tools.  Luckily there are many effective calendar apps to serve as a streamlined lead generation tool for real estate agents.

Many apps offer easy-to-use personal appointment tools, but Calendar.com also has a robust scheduling tool to help communicate schedules and available time slots to your clients.  This website gives you a unique scheduling URL you can share with potential homebuyers to let them book an appointment with you.

These are just a few of the must-have tools for real estate agents as social media and online marketing become more critical.  By managing your documents and your content and sharing it in the most high-impact ways, you can best serve your potential homebuyers.