The Beginner's Plea! Where Do I Start?
I have been to all the seminars and read all the books. I have even listened to the CDs but I just do not know where to start my investing career!
Ah...the all too common beginners plea for help!
Knowing how and where to begin investing is a valid concern. Though, I am more than 12 years into my own investing career, I remember as though it were yesterday my feelings of uncertainty about how to take the first steps in what would become my livelihood.
Anyone around this business 12 years ago can tell you about the information scarcity about real estate investing compared to today.
Investor clubs? I could not even find one in my area in those days. Also, unlike today, where major book stores dedicate entire business sections to real estate investing, I had to scrounge the shelves of local libraries for out of print, dusty, moldy smelling, real estate reading materials.
What a difference time makes. The person starting out as a real estate investor today is faced with the opposite as a challenge.
There is an overload of information about real estate investor strategies. This overwhelming information is the main reason so many become confused.
Believe me, I have discussed this dilemma with enough people in search of their first steps as an investor. I feel your pain!
The goal of any investor is to make money. And making lots of money fast is perhaps the biggest focus of most of those.
It is no secret real estate investing is full of fortune hunters clamoring to get into the gold rush, tripping over their own two feet, they stumble and bumble in perpetual darkness.
Many unfortunately give up and go back to their cubicles of life, off comes the cape. The super hero retreats, slinking back to the land of dreams deferred.
To choose a clear path, you must first know why it is you want to take the trip in the first place. Sounds simple does it not?
Well it is not! It has been said a good salesman can sell to most anyone because 90% of the people wondering around aimlessly do not know what they want. Same thing with investors, their only goal is to be rich! A millionaire!
Never taking a moments notice, that to make money in this business means solving problems for others. Oh yes, and to work at it!
That is right, the person who solves the most problems in life is rewarded the greatest.
Still sounds simple does it not? Your mission is to go out and solve problems for as many property owners as you can find. Do that and the money will follow.
That is where the missing link can be discovered. Come home from real estate seminar, all fired up to be a rehabber. Fix it and flip it! ( you know I hate the word flipping) Only problem is, your area has a soft market of resells.
Who you gonna sell it to?
That was my first amateur challenge. I found the properties. Fixed them nicely enough, but no one was buying in those days. I was stuck, or so I thought. It did not take me long to figure out instead of selling my rehabs,
I could rent them out easier. With that, beginners luck, I accumulated many rental properties, which quickly surpassed my salary at my day job.
Here in the Washington DC area gurus come to town teaching strategies which are a waste of time for our market.
An example of this is just a few months ago our market was on fire. Prices were climbing 2% per month, banks were handing out money to any buyer who could fog a mirror, yet some gurus sucked in the naive to their ineffective strategies like Short Sales and Lease Options.
That was crazy! No demand existed for the two. It was pitiful watching the bamboozled newbie spin his wheels.
Your mission, find the demand in the market where you plan to invest. You would be wise to know what is going on before you too spin your wheels.
Figure out what is going on in your market. Far too many newbies attempt to bring a supply of goods(strategies) where there is no demand.
What is going on? Are rehabs selling like pancakes? Or are the rehabs being kept as rentals? Are home owners suffering huge numbers of foreclosures?
If so get in, set up the plan to rescue these people with a quick purchase.
Do you live in an area where the home owners are aging and moving to retirement communities?
If so, the opportunities are many to buy these properties with huge equity margins, keep them as rentals, rehab or whatever.
If you live in a declining market where sales are slow, short sales and lease options are awesome strategies.
Keep your ear to the ground. Find out what the needs are. Find the demand, and then fill it!
Those most successful in life are the men and women who have found a way to make life easier, more bearable for the rest of us.
Gotta go now, it is time for me to order my groceries online. And you know what? I am eager to pay the company who created the online grocery ordering service.
They save me from having to jump in my car and trudge up and down the food isles in misery.
They sure solved my problem and made my life easier, And I am willing to pay a premium for that convenience!
Take Action!
Ken Williams
http://www.thewholesalewizard.com/
I have been to all the seminars and read all the books. I have even listened to the CDs but I just do not know where to start my investing career!
Ah...the all too common beginners plea for help!
Knowing how and where to begin investing is a valid concern. Though, I am more than 12 years into my own investing career, I remember as though it were yesterday my feelings of uncertainty about how to take the first steps in what would become my livelihood.
Anyone around this business 12 years ago can tell you about the information scarcity about real estate investing compared to today.
Investor clubs? I could not even find one in my area in those days. Also, unlike today, where major book stores dedicate entire business sections to real estate investing, I had to scrounge the shelves of local libraries for out of print, dusty, moldy smelling, real estate reading materials.
What a difference time makes. The person starting out as a real estate investor today is faced with the opposite as a challenge.
There is an overload of information about real estate investor strategies. This overwhelming information is the main reason so many become confused.
Believe me, I have discussed this dilemma with enough people in search of their first steps as an investor. I feel your pain!
The goal of any investor is to make money. And making lots of money fast is perhaps the biggest focus of most of those.
It is no secret real estate investing is full of fortune hunters clamoring to get into the gold rush, tripping over their own two feet, they stumble and bumble in perpetual darkness.
Many unfortunately give up and go back to their cubicles of life, off comes the cape. The super hero retreats, slinking back to the land of dreams deferred.
To choose a clear path, you must first know why it is you want to take the trip in the first place. Sounds simple does it not?
Well it is not! It has been said a good salesman can sell to most anyone because 90% of the people wondering around aimlessly do not know what they want. Same thing with investors, their only goal is to be rich! A millionaire!
Never taking a moments notice, that to make money in this business means solving problems for others. Oh yes, and to work at it!
That is right, the person who solves the most problems in life is rewarded the greatest.
Still sounds simple does it not? Your mission is to go out and solve problems for as many property owners as you can find. Do that and the money will follow.
That is where the missing link can be discovered. Come home from real estate seminar, all fired up to be a rehabber. Fix it and flip it! ( you know I hate the word flipping) Only problem is, your area has a soft market of resells.
Who you gonna sell it to?
That was my first amateur challenge. I found the properties. Fixed them nicely enough, but no one was buying in those days. I was stuck, or so I thought. It did not take me long to figure out instead of selling my rehabs,
I could rent them out easier. With that, beginners luck, I accumulated many rental properties, which quickly surpassed my salary at my day job.
Here in the Washington DC area gurus come to town teaching strategies which are a waste of time for our market.
An example of this is just a few months ago our market was on fire. Prices were climbing 2% per month, banks were handing out money to any buyer who could fog a mirror, yet some gurus sucked in the naive to their ineffective strategies like Short Sales and Lease Options.
That was crazy! No demand existed for the two. It was pitiful watching the bamboozled newbie spin his wheels.
Your mission, find the demand in the market where you plan to invest. You would be wise to know what is going on before you too spin your wheels.
Figure out what is going on in your market. Far too many newbies attempt to bring a supply of goods(strategies) where there is no demand.
What is going on? Are rehabs selling like pancakes? Or are the rehabs being kept as rentals? Are home owners suffering huge numbers of foreclosures?
If so get in, set up the plan to rescue these people with a quick purchase.
Do you live in an area where the home owners are aging and moving to retirement communities?
If so, the opportunities are many to buy these properties with huge equity margins, keep them as rentals, rehab or whatever.
If you live in a declining market where sales are slow, short sales and lease options are awesome strategies.
Keep your ear to the ground. Find out what the needs are. Find the demand, and then fill it!
Those most successful in life are the men and women who have found a way to make life easier, more bearable for the rest of us.
Gotta go now, it is time for me to order my groceries online. And you know what? I am eager to pay the company who created the online grocery ordering service.
They save me from having to jump in my car and trudge up and down the food isles in misery.
They sure solved my problem and made my life easier, And I am willing to pay a premium for that convenience!
Take Action!
Ken Williams
http://www.thewholesalewizard.com/
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