"Real Life Real Estate Investing May Require You To Get Upset -
A Lot"
We'll explain by tackling one of the most common things we hear from people who "want to invest", they even know the importance of it...
But when we ask why they don't they respond with, "just don't have the time right now" to get into real life real estate investing.
We all live busy lives. Family, kids, friends, school, careers, both parents working, a single parent working, older parents living with you. The list is endless.
However, I often wonder how much thought these people are putting into their answer.
If you've been hanging around us for a while you've heard us say that the middle class thinks "month to month" and the wealthy think "year to year". Real life real estate investing requires a long-term approach.
My fear is that these people are so caught up in the noise of their daily lives that they'll wake up a few short years from know wondering how they ended up 10 years older with no real income producing assets to their name. Still trading time for money.
And my strong belief is that it boils down to priorities and values.
For example, a working Mom may have this list of values in this order:
1. Family
2. Community/Friends
3. Career
4. Personal Time
5. Asset Accumulation
And a working Dad may have a list that looks like this:
1. Career
2. Family
3. Community/Friends
4. Personal Time
5. Asset Accumulation
When you look at this lists it becomes blatantly obvious why someone wouldn't "have the time" to do some real life real estate investing.
They're so busy with their jobs and their family that it's tough to fit anything else in.
I can totally respect that. We've been taught that our "careers" are how we define ourselves and that job security actually exists. So it naturally ends up high on the value list.
Have you read this quote from Stephen Covey, it sums things up nicely:
"Most people spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to realize, when they get to the top, the ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall"
Make sure your value list isn't leading you up the wrong wall.
You MUST take control of your own life. You must have personal responsibility.
You cannot depend on a company's RRSP plan. Just look at the equity markets these days. If you put all your eggs in someone else's basket they ultimately have control.
You need to be the one that has control. And real life real estate investing is all about control.
Does that take more time and effort?
Yes.
Here's what happens next. One day someone upsets them at their job and they finally lose it. They say to themselves that they must take control of their financial future.
They pull out a piece of paper and write out some goals.
I will buy 5 properties this year and make $25,000/month off my investments within 2 years.
I know all about this type of thinking. Been there. Done that.
But you know what?
When you put these goals out there on a piece of paper and carry them around in your pocket....they just kinda sit there.
You can only "think" about them for so long. "The Secret" only works if you actually put in some sweat equity.
The world rewards value creation. You need to go out and get started.
I've written down goals and got a high from just looking at how glorious they seemed in paper.
But nothing ever happened until I started working on them.
Here's how to get things done.
The next time someone or something upsets you at work, and I mean really makes you furious, use that energy to your advantage!
Maybe it's a Sales VP who tries to squeeze out yet another insane monthly sales quota increase or another unproductive meeting or some of your work being ignored.
Whatever it is that causes you to get frustrated may be the missing ingredient you need to get going!
There's opportunity in every adversity, right?
It's that frustration that is your only chance at having "asset accumulation" move high enough on your value list to force any action.
Use that emotional energy to reset your goals and to break out of your comfort zone.
Let me ask you something....
What if you just bought 2 properties this year?
Each of them earning a positive cash flow of $250/month.
Wouldn't that pay for your car?
And instead of your money sitting in a Mutual Fund that will *hopefully* earn 5% a year (before tax and inflation chop into that), you'll have your money controlling $500,000 worth of property.
The mortgages on that property will be paid off by someone else. So your $50,000 investment (money used for down payment) is now leveraged in two good homes in good areas.
The cash flow pays for your next car, the tax advantages allow you take more money home from your current income than you were before and you are gaining equity in the properties every month.
And the most important part...
10 years from now you will have even greater cash flow because the mortgages will be paid down. That's real life real estate investing.
You can use the higher cash flow for university payments for the kids, support for the aging parents, or support for yourself (think trips to Tuscany, Greece, Hawaii!).
Do you see why you must make income producing asset accumulation a priority on your value list?
You must make the time. "Not having enough time" to take control of your own future is a lazy excuse. Get out in the real world and mix it up a little.
Let us leave you with two quotes to get your real life real estate investing kicked into gear...
"Do one thing every day that scares you."
-Eleanor Roosevelt
US diplomat & reformer (1884 - 1962)
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
-Theodore Roosevelt April 10, 1899
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