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If someone dropped me in a new town and told me to buy a good real estate deal in less than 3 hours, here is what I would do.

Unlike all the big experts who will tell you to do a lot of marketing and make lots of offers on houses, if I wanted to find a deal fast the first thing I would do is find the local wholesaler.

Not just any wholesaler, because in a large market there will probably be more than a few and that is where you want to invest. What you should look for is the Big dog wholesaler, the one who is moving more properties than anyone else. Look for somebody who is purchasing and selling 5 to 10 properties per month. That would be a true wholesaler.

A true wholesaler marks up a deal a few thousand and goes to the next deal, nothing like many courses and real estate gurus talking of making 10, 20 or even 50k on a deal. These are not true wholesalers, they are flippers.

Flippers make home runs. They find a property and mark it up a bunch and make a killing one deal. These will be the guys that do one or two deals a month.

The true wholesalers will only make a little on each deal and therefore will have investors buying from them over and over again because they know they are getting the best deals.

In short, devoting a lot of time and money trying to learn how to find real estate deals in my opinion is a waste of time. I am one of the big dog wholesalers in my area and, after thinking about how I do business, I realized that before I became a wholesaler I wasted lots of time and money learning how to find deals. It does pay off if you want to be a wholesaler but if you are just trying to flip a deal or build a rental portfolio it really does not make sense trying to find better deals than me because you will not be able to do it.

If you want to find great deals super fast then use the local wholesaler. It is like having a buyer on your staff that is doing all the legwork for you. The time and money that is saved by using their expertise is more than worth the mark up you will pay.

Where do you go to buy something at lower a price? Wal-Mart, Target, all of the similar stores are large wholesalers. They buy in bulk and then pass the savings on to the consumer. In your real estate investing the local wholesaler does the same for you.

When I was starting out without any money, this is what I did.

Well, if you don’t know anything about wholesaling real estate and have no money to invest, you will need to have a job and get to work to make some cash so you can live, and then work to build into full time real estate.

What I would recommend is to find your real estate clubs and start networking, talking to real estate investors in your area. Be very bold and tell people you are new and eager to learn. Ask each investor you meet: “Is there any way we can do some business together real fast?” Most of them will say yes. Then push the conversation and find out how you can help the investor either buy or sell properties and make a little money.

The key when you first start is to concentrate on the learning process, not on doing your first deal; and the only way to learn is to “jump in amongst it”. If you will ask this question to every investor you meet, sooner or later you are going to find someone whom you will be able to help and to learn from.

Once you start, you will soon find a way to flip your first deal. Either you will meet sellers or you will meet buyers through connections that you make. It is very easy – and cost nothing but time.

This way I met a lot of my mentors in the business. As I was doing that I was developing the skills necessary to get into the business full time.

If you looked for an investment club in your area and could not find one, I have to say I don’t think you were looking hard enough.

Recently somebody told me that they couldn’t find any investment clubs in Charleston, South Carolina. So I ran a search on Google and got several results. On the list of contacts there were two clubs in Charleston, some links to Web sites with several phone numbers. If I tried to call so many numbers, I would certainly find someone who would point me the right direction.

By the way, I went to high school in Dillon, SC, so I know about Charleston. I will bet you any amount of money that there is an investment club or association there; in the city the size of Charleston there is inevitably at least one.

Always start with using Internet; you will find out that a problem you are facing is simple. What if you are not comfortable around computers? Learn how to use one, especially the Internet; not doing it nowadays is quite a disadvantage. What you really need is to get enthusiastic and more determined to find the answers you need.

What helped me develop the attitude of determination, was telling myself that finding the answers and achieving my goals was the matter of life and death. When you can learn to imagine yourself in this kind of situation, you will be able to do anything. It is hard to imagine, of course, that someone is holding a gun to your head and gave you a time limit to come up with a solution of a problem. But look at the mental side of things – don’t you think that this method of self-motivation could be quite effective?

My advice to you is – be proactive! Start with the Web, get any related information, write down all available numbers and call them. Even if you don’t find exactly what you are looking for, you would still make useful contacts in the area and eventually find what you were looking for.