Ssshh! Copy the successful investor's hack
It goes against the grain of what we were taught as we grew up “Don’t look at your neighbor’s paper,” they said. In the business world however, we are encouraged to copy from others. When you find successful business savvy people (in our case, investors) copying off your neighbor’s homework is a prudent move.
As adults we look at things differently. We even devote entire groups to gather and copy from each other. Most large cities in the U.S has a RIEA (Real Estate Investors Association). When you attend these associations, we share successes and most importantly failures of the business of investing. Learning what does not work from someone and the cost and pain they suffered is a very economical way for you to avoid the same pitfalls
Jim Rohn quote:
“It’s important to learn from your mistakes, but it is BETTER to learn from other people’s mistakes, and it is BEST to learn from other people’s successes. It accelerates your own success.” This is why as adults we like to copy the successful neighbor and do what is proven to work.
There is nothing more sobering than hearing a fellow investor talk about the costly mistakes they made. Anyone who has done lots of investing has made bad decisions or made mistakes along the way. Therefore, successful people like to hang around successful people. Think about this logically:
Learn from experts
Why would you spend the next 20-30 years trying to figure out everything on your own, when you could learn everything you need to learn from experts in the field that do it every day. If someone has already made costly mistakes why would you want to go through the risk of repeating those mistakes?
When you have to much pride or perhaps are stuck trying to do everything by yourself, success can take years, even decades
Therefore, successful people take shortcuts. They realize that time is the most important asset in the world. You can always make more money. But you can never get back the time you wasted. You may as well enjoy the success early on in life while you can get the most benefit from it.
The big mistake I learned the hard way
My biggest real estate investing mistake: Skimping on hiring a property manager. Since I started investing at the age 16, I managed all my own properties. I was known by all my tenants as “Larry Landlord”. In 2003 my wife and I decided to move from the cold Midwest state of Minnesota to the sunshine state of Florida. I have sold some of my properties but kept 12 of them that I wanted to retain.
My mistake came from the mindset that I did not want to forfeit any profits to the cost of a property management company. While the average property manager fees run 10% I decided to hire a friend of a friend who would manage them for only 4%. (Yes, it should have been a clue) Wow! I thought I cheated the system and saved 6%. This was a scarcity mindset, fearing I would lose money if I paid the 10 percent (and my largest learning lesson to date). O.K. the short version of the story is that this low-cost management embezzled from me and in a big way. He billed me for repairs that were never done. The units went and stayed vacant due to lack of maintenance. I rapidly started bleeding (running negative cash flow) to the tune of $12,000 each month. This was all at the time the real estate balloon was about to burst adding pain to misery
So, did I save 6 % in property management? That mistake ended up costing me a large portion of my portfolio. I wish I would have had read an article like this one and created the needed “AH HA” moment that a dollar saved in not necessarily a dollar earned.
Do you agree that it makes sense to make a tiny investment in a mentor, someone who can distill 36 years of hard-fought lessons into a matter of hours?
This is how you leapfrog over everyone else who is working themselves to death! You learn faster so that you may implement faster. You can reach your goal in a fraction of the time.
It is often difficult to make this happen all on your own. That is why I am such a huge fan of finding a mentor to accelerate your progress.
You want to find someone who can identify the holes in your game. Better yet, if that someone who has been through the problems you are facing now with the solutions to the obstacles that stand in your way. Also, you want that someone who has a fresh perspective on your problems and can show you how to solve them in the most efficient matter available.
Happy investing!
The author’s opinion cannot be construed as tax or legal advice, and may not represent the views of HTBUSA or its stakeholders. HTBUSA is not a legal service or professional tax service. As with any investment, there is an inherent risk in investing in real estate..