Doing your own due diligence means taking the time to learn, study, review, check-out, and investigate a certain business or deal prior to your commitment to purchase, in order to make sure the business (or deal) is everything that you thought it was.

When it comes to investing in Real Estate, due diligence is used in several different ways. You will often see the term due diligence used when analyzing a deal or a property (again, prior to purchase). This will include not only the renovation work that needs to be done but the costs of the materials and labor of the renovations as well.

Due diligence includes making sure you have used the necessary tools to gather comparables (comps) in order to determine the fair market price or after repair value. Other items on your list include making sure you are fully aware of any current or past tax or title issues, as well as knowing about the current zoning, floodplains, easements, etc.

Further due diligence is required for landlords who are purchasing a property to buy and hold especially if those properties are already occupied. In this case, due diligence will include inspecting not only the properties themselves but the current leases, rent rolls, and security deposits. If applicable governmental such as section 8 approval certificates may have to be looked into as well.

One important issue that many new Real Estate Investors seem to forget about is the importance of doing your own due diligence when it comes to working with other Real Estate Investors, no matter how friendly or experienced they are.

One of the benefits that the REI for Newbies Insider's Club members have is the ability to email me with any and all questions that they have. I recently received an email from a new real estate investor who was really excited about the possibility of finally purchasing his first rehab. He found the property through another investor who had too many so he was unloading some of them. Turns out that after all was said and done this would have been a terrible deal for a new real estate investor.

The numbers that the experienced investor provided to the newbie were simply not entirely on the up and up. While I am sure that he meant no harm, this could have ended up being a really big problem for the new investor.

You see the experienced investor told the new investor that he could be in and out, meaning the property could be ready for market in less than 4 weeks. But what he failed to remember was that the experienced investor already had his team assembled while the new investor was starting totally from scratch. The new investor had to first start with finding contractors and getting estimates.

Not only that, but the experienced investor had his real estate license so his costs to resell the property were not going to be as high as the new investor who is not licensed. Overall, the numbers were just too tight for someone who was brand new. Luckily the new investor took a step back and avoided being a motivated buyer.

By the way, I have seen many experienced investors specifically say that they have an extra property that would not be good for a newbie. Generally speaking this is the type of experienced investor circle that newbie investors want to become a part of.

The bottom line is that all Real Estate Investors, no matter how experienced or not, need to do his/her own due diligence no matter where or who they get their leads from. Always remember that no one is going to protect your business or your potential profits like you will.