36. 5 Skills You Need to Know Before Real Estate Investing for Beginners

What skills do you actually need to become a real estate investor?

In this episode of Real Estate Chisme, Violeta and Lindsay break down the essential skills every aspiring real estate investor should focus on before buying their first rental property. From choosing an investment strategy and understanding cash flow to building a reliable team and managing fear-driven decisions, they share practical lessons they've learned throughout their own investing journeys.

Lindsay explains why real estate investing starts with clarity and strategy, helping listeners understand the different paths available, including house hacking, long-term rentals, short-term rentals, multifamily properties, and out-of-state investing. She discusses the importance of defining your goals, understanding your risk tolerance, and creating a plan that aligns with your lifestyle and financial objectives.

Meanwhile, Violeta shares real-world examples from her latest rental property rehab, including uncovering termite damage during renovations, managing unexpected expenses, and learning how to make confident decisions without letting fear take over. She discusses the mindset shifts that helped her navigate financial anxiety, perfectionism, and the realities of owning and improving investment properties.

Together, they emphasize that successful real estate investing isn't about knowing everything before you start—it's about developing the right skills over time, asking good questions, and taking action despite uncertainty.

They also discuss:

• Choosing the right real estate investment strategy for your goals
 • Understanding cash flow, expenses, vacancies, repairs, and CapEx
 • How to analyze rental property deals without being a math expert
 • Building a team of lenders, agents, inspectors, contractors, and property managers
 • Asking better questions during inspections and due diligence
 • The importance of understanding your "why" before investing
 • Managing fear, financial anxiety, and decision-making as a new investor
 • Handling unexpected renovation surprises and property issues
 • Creating must-have vs. nice-to-have repair lists
 • Why no deal is better than a bad deal
 • Learning to balance risk, opportunity, and long-term wealth building
 • Developing the confidence to take action as a beginner investor

This episode is a practical guide for aspiring investors who want to get started in real estate but feel overwhelmed by everything they think they need to know. Violeta and Lindsay remind listeners that you don't need to be an expert to begin—you simply need to be teachable, willing to learn, and ready to take the next step.

Tune in for an encouraging conversation packed with beginner-friendly investing advice, mindset shifts, and actionable lessons to help you build wealth through real estate with confidence.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Remember, you don't need to be perfect to start. You just need to be teachable. You don't need to know everything. You just need to know what's your next step. You don't need to become a greedy landlord to become a successful investor. You can do it well, provide a safe housing, and do it with integrity. So the question is, am I already good at all of this? But the better question is, which skills am I willing to start building first?

Violeta 0:29

You do not need to be a real estate genius to become a real estate investor. You just need to build some skills. And no, I'm not talking about memorizing every mortgage term, like if you're studying for the realtor exam. I'm just talking about practical skills that you're going to need that will help you buy the rental property, keep the rental property, and also manage your rental property without spiraling. Because real estate investing has two very different personalities, which comes at the buying phase when you acquire the property and actually manage the property. I'm talking about the loans, the deals, the inspections, running the numbers, and then afterwards managing the tenants and your property. And now you don't have to know all of this upfront. Many of these I learned throughout my real estate investing journey. And some of them I'm still building to this day, especially now that I am doing more active real estate investing and managing this rental property myself. And so today I want to just talk about some of the skills that you actually need as a real estate investor before and after you buy your property. But before we get into the episode, don't forget if you are a Latina that's wanting to get into real estate investing or already an investor, I invite you to join my free community hosted on school. That is where you can ask like questions, you can network, building it up to eventually also have enough members to host maybe monthly cafecito and real estate cheats mail or something. You know, I'll work on the name. I have free resources and five minute breakdowns on there. And that's where you could find me and even my co-host Lindsay. The link is down below. And speaking of Lynn, she has been MIA for the past few episodes, except the recent one, because she actually recorded that one without me. I was missing. So welcome back, Lynn. I know you were, I think you were working for a marathon. You were training for one.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

No, no, not that. But my boyfriend, in fact, was training for a marathon. So I was just like being cheerleader, you know, when when she was branding, I was just like, let's go. You can't do it. You not me. You can do it.

Violeta 2:51

Oh, okay. I thought you were, I was gonna be like, wow, like no, for practice, I was training that's a lot of work. I see some of the people training for that.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, no, for I was trying to train with him, but I definitely I don't think you can run a marathon yet. Maybe sometime next year, but not yet. But yeah, I missed you. I missed you guys. I'm sure you missed me too.

Violeta 3:13

Yeah, it was definitely lonely, like you know, recording episodes by myself and everything. So I'm excited to have you back and get back into the routine and talk about real estate cheese man stuff.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Yeah, and for our first point, one of the things that I definitely want you to think about is your investment strategy. Because before you buy a rental, you need to know what kind of game you're playing. You can just say, Oh, I'm gonna invest in real estate, okay, then what? This is the first skill you have to invest on because you're not collecting just random real estate. You're actually trying to build a business. So there is a lot of investment strategies out there. We have house hacking, we have long-term rentals, short-term rentals, aka Airbnb, a small multifamily, out of state investing, fixer uppers, turkey properties, but they all require a little different risk tolerance, a little different energy. And sometimes you or most people can get overwhelmed because they're like, oh my god, there's so much, I don't even know where to start. I would suggest you pick one lane first because this helps you stop spinning. It's kind of like when you're dating and there's like so many options out there, but you know to you need to know who you are and what it's gonna be attractive to you first. Let's say you don't have time and you don't have a neighborhood or backyard that you can invest in because prices are too high. Maybe you have to look further, right? But don't let that stop you because rental strategy is not always the one with the highest return. Sometimes it's the one you can actually execute without losing sleep and peace. So ask yourself do I want cash flow, appreciation, tax benefits, or long-term wealth? Decide how involved you wanna be. Do you have time to dedicate to your a short-term rental, for example? Do you have time to be on the phone answering text and emails from the guests? Do you wanna do co-living where you're even more active? Pick one beginner-friendly strategy to study first. So if everything feels overwhelming to you, the easiest thing to do is to just like find out what strategy speaks the most to you. Do you like to house hack? Do you have extra rooms in your house to potentially rent it out? Not even like short term, maybe long term. Like which one to you seems the thing that will be more appropriate for your skills, for the thing, for your risk tolerance. And whatever you do, do not compare your first step to somebody else's fit property. Because once you become a burst into this real estate world, you're gonna hear all of people's stories. I mean, I'm sure you'll listen to Bigger Pocket and other podcasts, but there are a lot of stories in which they go from zero to a hundred. That does not need to be you. You are a beginner, you need to stay in your own journey because your journey is not the same as everybody else's. And one of the things that I continue to have as my North Star is my why. And I think I'll encourage you to write down a journal, or maybe think about why do you need to write that offer for the first property? Why are you doing it?

Violeta 6:38

Yeah, definitely your why is very important to get off at the beginning. That's definitely something that I always refer to every time I buy a rental property. And stay with us because the next skill is the one that makes people feel like they need to be a math genius, they need a finance degree and all that, but you don't. You do not need to be a math genius to invest in real estate. You just need to learn and get comfy with the numbers. It's stressful at first, it's intimidating, but it's just something new that you just learn and continue going. This is where we're going to talk about the numbers, the money, but a little bit más calmado. We're not gonna do like panic math, but you do need to understand the basics, right? Just learn what a purchase price is and researching that for your market. Know how a mortgage payment works because that's very important, especially when it comes with property taxes and the insurance, because you might be tempted to think that your mortgage payment, even if you have a fixed interest rate, you think that's going to be your mortgage payment each time. But no, property taxes go up, insurance goes up. You also need to understand repairs, vacancy, property management. And this is where a lot of new investors I think get in trouble because they just focus on oh, my mortgage payment and how much rent I can get, and everything left over, that's money that is for me. But no, you still have to set money aside for repairs, you need to account for you know when people move. Property management, even if you want to manage your properties yourself, you want to have a little buffer there. In case that you decide that is not for you, then at least you have money in the cash flow to cover a property manager. And same thing with the rents, doing research with how much you could actually rent out a property for it, because it really depends on the rental market and your target tenants, what they can afford. You don't want to be at the very top or at the very bottom, you want to be kind of like in the middle. That's where I aim to be. Because if you're at the very top, it's gonna take forever to find a tenant because you're at the top of their budgets, and all that, you know, goes into the calculation for cash flow, which I'll link it below. But me and Lynn, we did do an episode on you know calculating cash flow where we go into it. I also have a five-minute breakdown. Once again, little plug for the community, have a five-minute breakdown for that. But yeah, we talked about how to calculate cash flow and what expenses go into that. You need to understand appreciation and how you know leverage that property in the future, the equity to buy more properties, buy more assets, and that's something that Lynn is doing very well with. She has been leveraging her way in growing her portfolio. And all of that sounds like scary, but again, remember it's just something that's new. Just give yourself the grace. It's okay to be a beginner, nobody starts off as an expert. So, all of the skills that we're talking about, especially this one, is going to help you avoid buying a rental property just because you feel like it's going to be a good deal. Yes, emotions go into investing in real estate, but understanding the numbers is going to help you buy a rental property that's going to actually make you money, not just, hey, this is a nice looking property. So, with that, just a few tips. Learn how to estimate monthly rental income. Always include the vacancy repairs and maintenance and capex. Again, refer to our episode on cash flow and just run conservative numbers, especially right now, especially with this economy, especially with the interest rates and things like that. Like, definitely run more conservative numbers. Give yourself enough of a cushion and just practice analyzing deals. Even if you're not ready right now, just go on Zillow or whatever, realtor.com, whatever you like to use, and just pretend you're buying. Look up what current interest rates and stuff. I have a calculator down below. I'll link it as well that can help you. But before you use a calculator, definitely practice doing it yourself, like with doing all the steps.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah. And let's say you did pick your investment strategy, you know your numbers, you know your purchase price, you know your rents were there. Yeah. Now is the time to take action. And what is action look like? You have to build a team for yourself. So real estate is not a solo sport. You cannot do everything. You're going to be the person that needs to give up control. And if you're independent, you're first gen and you're used to figuring out everything alone, you need to understand that you need people. This skill is about who you need around you. So, first, if you're staying on market, if you pick the beginner strategy, you're gonna buy a market, you need a good real estate agent, you need a lender, you need an inspector, you need a contractor, and you need an insurance agent, a property manager, and later on a CPA, an attorney, depending on what state and what's your situation. But these are key members of your team. And it might feel overwhelming. A lot of your team may be referrals from other team members. For example, if you have a real good investment real estate agent, they may direct you to an inspector, they may direct you to a contractor already. So when you're looking at your team, don't get overwhelmed right now, because it looks like a lot of people, but you're gonna start with one step at a time, right? So you're gonna find that real estate agent that is gonna be well versed in your market. You don't need anybody on day one, okay? And it might take you multiple offers before you even need an inspector, right? Before you even call and talk about it. But you do need to know the process. This helps you feel less alone and less intimidated, especially if you are first gen Latinas who may not have grown up around investing conversations. You are allowed to ask questions. You're allowed to say, can you explain to me that again? You're allowed to take up space in the deal. So know that a lot of this is going to be new, even when you have friends that are investing in real estate, even when you listen to podcasts every day about real estate, even when you have read the books. A lot of these things are gonna feel very, very new and they're gonna create fear. But that's why you need to ask questions and ask the right questions. So, tips for making this a little bit difficult. Ask your lender what loan options fit your goal. Ask your agent about rental demand and property conditions. Ask your inspector what repairs are urgent versus cosmetic. For example, one thing that I do on the norm, right? When I do buy something on the market and I have an inspection and they send me the 40 pages of inspection that I have to go through, like I'm a little expert contractor, whatever. I call the inspector right away, okay? They usually give you tags. So, like green for something that it's not as urgent, red for something that's very urgent. I call the inspector and I tell them, hey, I'm a small time investor, I have a couple houses, I'm not 100% sure what looks to you the most urgent. So I will ask them, what do I need to fix right now in order to close this deal? What can wait three months? What can wait six months? So those are my questions for the inspector. Because as a small real estate investor, you calculate your numbers, right? Like if I'm going to have to put a roof right now, that could be $15,000, $20,000. Do I have that in my numbers and my spreadsheet and my reserves to move forward with the deal? He may say, Your roof needs to go like right now. You can patch it, but it's not gonna last you more than one year. That's a little bit of a leeway in demon. I can patch in a year. You decide if that's going to be a thing that you're gonna address right now. So one of the calls or tips that I have for you. When you ask the contractor, make sure that they're writing your estimates. So everything you need to have in writing. If they call you and they say, like, oh, it's gonna be like $10,000 to $15,000. I'm like, okay, and that's a pretty big range. Can you put that in writing? And why would it be 15 versus 10, right? If I'm going higher cosmetic finishes, then that's more understandable. Can you put that in your estimate? Ask property managers how they screen tenants and handle maintenance. So this is something that's gonna be very market unique because we have all fair housing law acts and different counties. They have different things. Like I was talking just recently about deposits in different counties cannot be more than one month's rent, right? So that's something that it's very, very in other states like Indiana, it can be up to two months. But what does the market say? Your property manager will know, right? Not only the law, but also what's common practice in your area. Or maybe you'll find out because you're gonna be escaping your tenants. Keep a running list in your notes app of questions. So if you feel like 100% of this is new to you, you're allowed to ask the same question multiple times. Remember, these are your team, these are people that are you're probably gonna use for years or years if you are here for the long term. So if you need to build a connection with them and they need to explain something to you again, that doesn't mean that you are behind or you know understanding the concept. That just means this is new to you and it's gonna take you a little while to get into the language of real estate.

Violeta 16:33

Yeah. Now let's talk about the part that nobody loves but everybody needs, and it's making decisions without the spiraling. And Lynn kind of touched up on it, especially when it comes down to figuring out what fixes, what repairs you want to make versus which ones can, you know, wait a little bit longer. And one of the most underrated real estate investing skills, yes, it's a little bit of the map, but it's actually something else as well, which is learning how to make decisions without letting the fear drive that decision. And that is one of the things that I've learned throughout my time as well. I still feel it sometimes, especially with this recent rehab. Um, like, in a matter of fact, I had a friend when I don't know if y'all, if you don't follow my social media, I I post sometimes a little bit updates of what I've been doing in this rehab. And one of the recent surprises was that when I took down a wall was termites, evidence of termites. And I didn't realize that, you know, I had evolved this skill, like developed this skill because I had a friend that was like, oh my God, like I would have been freaking out, like I would have been spiraling, I would have wanted to sell this house right away or whatever. And you just took it like so chill and everything. I was like, well, at some point, it's like, well, I could stress about it. I mean, it definitely was not fun to find that, but the thing is like, okay, so how do I fix this? What do I do? So that's the first thing I end up doing. And then instead of letting that fear rise up, because it did want to, when I saw and pulled that my husband, we both were there and we're like, oh my God. And at first we thought it was mold and we just ran out the house, and then I went back with, you know, my respirator and looked at it, and I was like, actually, this looks like termites. So that we controlled our fear, and then I was like, okay, so what decisions do we need to do to fix this issue? And you know, real estate is definitely gonna bring up those money fears that if you didn't address those, and you're definitely gonna have to address those as a real estate investor. Your fear of debt, your fear of losing money, all that is going to come up when you are investing in real estate. You're gonna learn to have to figure out how to handle that because you don't want that fear to skew or mess up your decisions because you want to make rational, educated decisions. So that's a skill that comes with time, right? It's not gonna be something overnight. And again, for many of us, money is not just money, you know, it's our family. We've dealt with it throughout our lives. Some come from survival mode, so then we get that financial anxiety, and so it's really just learning how to navigate that and it takes some time, but don't just like forget about it or not address it or just kind of put it in the background because it's gonna come up and you don't want that coming up at the wrong time when you're trying to finish a rental property and you got a tenant moving in a week, and now that comes up and it could really mess you up. So, yeah, so when you're buying a property, your nervous system is going to come up, it's going to show you what you've been neglecting. So just be aware of that. Again, just focus on reviewing the numbers, your contracts, talking to the professionals. So that's the first thing I did was like, okay, I went to YouTube university first, of course, to figure out if that's what I was looking at and what to do, whatever. Called a termite inspector. They came and they, you know, calmed me down as well because I still had fear, right? I just am very good at hiding it. But like it's still there on the surface level. But I I've gone really good at kind of like letting it just be at the surface and and just I go into action. Like, what do I need to do? So they told me, all right, I we just gotta do treatment. That was $2,000. So they did the treatment in the house, and and it lasts for I think he said like 10 years or something like that. So I was like, oh, okay. Looked at everything and they sprayed everything down. So okay, so good. Fire taken care of, and you know, learning how to just navigate that, and then I was able to breathe. I was like, oh, like it wasn't as bad as I thought. Like, you know, I just focused on what I can do, called the professional, dealt with the numbers, adjusted my current numbers, and just kept it moving, and then on to the next thing I need to get done with the project. And so just understanding those same thing with Lynn, figuring out, like, okay, what can I get done now? What can be done later? And those are some decisions I had to learn here because we were kind of talking offline of be like, oh, sometimes especially that perfectionism comes up, and then you have to also balance that with, for example, my market is with working class neighborhoods, so I'm not working with class A near neighborhoods where they expect all this luxurious things, right? So I gotta balance that. I gotta figure out my emotions because it's like, but I want them to have this and that and everything. It's like, well, you know, it's a rental property and some things can wait. I'm just gonna take care of the safety stuff. That's what I always focus on the safety stuff and the maintenance stuff. What's going to like if I let this go, it's going to become a bigger issue later on that's gonna cost me. So it's just a lot of things that you just learn to navigate again. Real estate investing involves risk, but that risk can be managed. That's some kind of a recurring theme with me and Lynn. We always mention that that, like, yes, risk is there, but you can manage that risk. It's never going to be a perfect zero risk deal, but you manage it with education, with ensuring that you have reserves, doing your inspections, asking questions, and having your good team and making sure you have boundaries. So a few tips with that is creating a must-have and nice to have list. And I definitely did that with this property. I was like, okay, what are my must-haves? Well, the insulation had suspected asbestos, so definitely that has to go, which means then I also have to put new insulation. Cool. What's the other thing? Well, all right, so I have to do the electrical stuff. There's a few electrical hazards I need to take care of. And then my nice to have list was okay, I could replace the fans. But after I cleaned them, I realized that they were actually still in good condition. They were just like dirty and dusty. So after I cleaned them, I was like, oh, actually, okay. And then things like better doorknobs and stuff like that. That would have been nice to have, but because of the surprises, like the termites, I was like, and other things, I was like, well, not gonna replace the doorknobs or the handles because they got painted over, you know, the good old landlord special. I was like, oh, I mean, they're still functional, so that's not going to be done this time around. So just things like that. Decide your walk away number before emotions. This definitely comes into play with when you're out there acquiring the property. I've definitely had some of these get really close where I'm like, I don't know if if y'all watched this podcast for a while, I talked about a deal that would have been a good deal, but it just wasn't in the cards for me. And I still mourned the loss of that. But my number was this number, and that's it. And so I had to walk away. And same thing with this property. I went in there and I said, This is my number, not going above more. I wish I would have gotten less now with everything that I know now. Otherwise, I'm walking. And I was like, and luckily I got it. So build an emergency fund for the property and sleep on the big decisions when possible. That way you don't let that urgency from someone else become your emergency. And again, remember, no deal is better than a bad deal. Like, it's like it's okay to walk away. Don't force yourself to make a deal work or you feel like you have to have a rental property.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

So before you buy a property, you need skills like strategy, understanding the numbers, building your team, asking good questions, and making decisions without letting fear take over. After your property comes to rental, you need a different set of skills: tenant communication, boundaries, maintenance planning, safety awareness, money tracking and system. So stay tuned for the next episode. But remember, you don't need to be perfect to start. You just need to be teachable. You don't need to know everything. You just need to know what's your next step. You don't need to become a greedy landlord to become a successful investor. You can build wealth, provide a safe housing, and do it with integrity. So the question is, am I already good at all of this? But the better question is, which skills am I willing to start building first? If this episode made real estate investing feel a little bit less scary, send it to another amiga or future world-building mujer who needs to hear this. Don't stop tapping into our episodes. We are on YouTube, Spotify, whatever you can download a good episode from us. We are doing this every week. So if you can go support us, like our episodes, or subscribe, and we'll be coming back to you with more information about real estates and more cheese meh.

Violeta 26:07

Bye.