My Honest Advice to a 19-Year-Old Investor With No Money and No Support

TLDR
If you’re 19 and want to get into real estate, you don’t need to join the military for a VA loan. An FHA loan works just fine. Find mentors, bird-dog for them, house hack a small multifamily, and outlast everybody who quits. The mindset matters more than the path.

Table of Contents

The Question

I’m breaking down a real question from a 19-year-old investor who posted on Bigger Pockets. He’s trying to build wealth with no money, no support, and one pretty creative idea.

Roel is 19, in college for business management, got introduced to real estate at 15. He’s dreaming of buying properties and building long-term wealth. He’s thinking about joining the Air Force just so he can get a va loan to qualify to buy a fourplex and finish school with military benefits.

His dad is not on board. Dad wants him to finish college. Doesn’t understand why the military or real estate is in the picture.

And now Roel is stuck. Finish college and wait to invest? Or join the military, get a VA loan, and start investing?

Roel’s dad, if you’re listening, this isn’t an attack on you. I’m a parent. You’re a parent. We all want what’s best for our kids. And my parents didn’t grow up investing in real estate either, so they weren’t thrilled with the path I chose at first either. That’s normal.

My Grandpa’s Advice

When I was 19, I was trying to buy my first house with an fha loan. Took me a few years to get approved. I remember telling my grandpa about it. He was kind of the patriarch of the family. I can still see him laying there and he basically told me I was an idiot. I was making a risky move. I was going to lose everything.

That was tough to hear from my grandpa. But I knew deep down that I wanted to pursue real estate wealth. That was my route. And that was before Rich Dad Poor Dad, before I read any of the books. I was just wired that way.

I remember riding to school every day and passing this one house with a shed in the backyard. I used to think, I could live in that shed, put a mattress in it, fix up the house, and sell it. I also thought maybe I should be a teacher so I’d have the summers off to work on houses. Weird kid.

The point: houses are the biggest thing everybody needs. People have been living in them for hundreds of years. They will for hundreds more. Why wouldn’t I invest my time, energy, and learning into the thing everybody needs?

Roel is thinking the same way. Good instinct.

Key Concept
There are countless people who have built real wealth and more importantly freedom through real estate. It’s not a scam. It’s not a pipe dream. It’s a very real path if you’re willing to put the work in. The alternative is a 9-to-5 where you give the best hours of the best years of your life to build somebody else’s wealth.

Mindset Beats Smart

Listen, I’m not the smartest guy in the room. Not even close. But I outlast people. I grind. I stay in it when everyone else is quitting.

From Roel’s post, he’s wired the same way. That’s the thing that matters more than the strategy.

You’re going to mess up. Everybody does. I know I did. I still do. That’s the best part. That’s how you get good. The key is you don’t go too far out over your skis. You don’t take on skinny deals and hope they work because things are going to go wrong. Get great deals on the front end with a great plan of attack, and when stuff goes wrong, and it will, you’ve got room to protect yourself.

Your age is your biggest asset. Roel is 19. I had the same advantage for my first seven or eight years. And honestly, for those first seven or eight years I basically broke even. Why? Because I didn’t take the time to learn the skills. I dove right in. That was a boot camp in itself, one that paid me back 20-fold, and I’m glad I went through it.

But if I could do it over, I’d have prioritized the skills and knowledge earlier. You can do that without taking on as much personal risk.

You Don’t Need the Military for a VA Loan

I’ve got nothing but respect for the people serving. I really mean that.

But if you’re thinking about joining only to get the VA loan, man, there are easier ways to get started. You don’t have to go through boot camp to get your hands on a property. You can go through a different boot camp: the real estate one.

An fha loan is pretty similar to a VA loan. Low down payment, owner-occupant, works on 1-4 unit properties. Start working toward that. It’ll get you into the same kind of property without the six-year military commitment.

The VA benefit is real if you were already going to serve. It is not worth the detour if you weren’t.

The Mentor Path

Here’s what I would actually do at 19.

Go talk to real estate investors in your area. If you don’t know any, that’s normal. Hit up your local real estate meetup groups. Get on the real estate Facebook groups. They exist in every town. DM people on Bigger Pockets. Network.

Find someone legit who’s actually doing deals. Tell them whatever it takes. “I’ll work for free if you need. Obviously it’d be better if I got paid. But I want to learn under you.”

You are shopping for mentors. You’re trying to find the best real estate investors around and plug yourself into their world.

Offer to bird dog for them. Hunt deals. Bring them leads. You’ll get real practice underwriting deals, and they’ll tell you when your numbers are off. That feedback is priceless. It’s the thing that separates people who quit in year one from people who are still doing this in year 15.

You’ll hear a voice in your head that says, “What if I mess up?” You will mess up. That’s fine. Mentors cushion the real costly mistakes and let you learn from the small ones.

House Hack the Fourplex

Roel’s plan to buy a fourplex is a good one. I’d push back on the military path, not the multifamily path.

house hacking is one of the best moves you can make as a young single person. You get a primary residence mortgage at the lowest rates and lowest down payment, on a property that pays you to live in it. I did something similar early on. I bought a triplex. Lived in the crappiest unit, rented the other two, fixed up mine while living in it, then moved to another unit and fixed that one up. Once all three were nice, I realized my unit was too nice for me and I went and bought another one and did the same thing.

These are primary-residence loans. That’s the whole trick with multifamily up to four units. You can get a primary mortgage on it and live in one side while the other sides pay the bills.

Great idea, Roel. But don’t buy tomorrow. Get a little education first. Find a mentor. Bird-dog some deals. Learn what a deal actually looks like. Then pull the trigger with an FHA.

Pro Tip
The biggest mistake young investors make isn’t waiting too long. It’s buying the wrong first deal in a hurry because the excitement of finally being an investor overrides the discipline of waiting for a good one. Slow down on deal one. Go fast on everything after.

FAQ

I’m Roel’s age. I don’t have a mentor yet. What’s the first step this week?

Find your local real estate meetup on Meetup.com or Facebook. Go to the next one. Don’t sell anything, don’t pitch yourself as an investor yet. Just show up, ask questions, listen. Do that three weeks in a row and you’ll have relationships with at least two or three active investors.

What do I actually do as a bird dog?

Drive neighborhoods. Look for vacant houses, overgrown lawns, boarded windows, mail piling up. Write down the address. Run the owner through a free tool and get the phone number. Bring the lead to your mentor. If it turns into a deal, you get a small fee. More importantly, you get to watch how they evaluate it.

What if my family is against me investing like Roel’s dad?

Normal. My grandpa told me I was an idiot. My parents weren’t thrilled. You don’t need their approval to start. You need their patience. Prove the model on a small deal, without asking them for money, without asking them to co-sign. Results quiet the concern faster than arguments.

Should I skip college?

No. Finish college. Real estate doesn’t require you to quit. House hack while you’re still in school if you can. By graduation you’ll have a rental, a down payment saved, and a year of property management experience. That’s a much better position than “I quit college to flip houses.”

Is the FHA really as good as a VA loan?

Not quite. VA has no down payment and no PMI. FHA requires about 3.5% down and has PMI. But FHA requires no military service, no six-year commitment, and you can use it right now. For most people weighing this, FHA is the clear right answer.