Can ANYONE Make Money in Real Estate?

If you watch enough of the late night infomercials, you’ll start getting convinced that anyone can make money in real estate.  That it’s so easy even if you’ve had a frontal lobotomy you can make a fortune in real estate.  They make it sound like real estate investing is like using an Easy Bake oven.  

            Now for the horrid truth.  Not everyone can make money in real estate, and real estate isn’t for everybody.  Investing, whether in the stock market or real estate can be very stressful, and you have to able to remove yourself emotionally from the investments.  Not everyone can do that.  In fact, I would be willing to say that most people CAN’T do that! 

I can assure you that if you buy a house to rehab, and you’ve allotted $5k for repairs, but by the second day of work you realize you’re going to need at least $10k to rehab it, but you don’t have the $10k, there will be some very powerful emotions involved!  Or what if  you have a house that you’ve put all your money into, and are trying to rent it out, but after 4 months of it sitting empty, and another payment coming due on it?  Can you remove yourself emotionally from it? 

Real estate investing is not for everyone.  Getting into real estate because you think it’s a quick, easy way to make money is like becoming a pastor because you think you’ll only have to work one day a week.  There is a lot more to it than that.  Not everyone can be a teacher, not everyone can be a pilot or a surgeon or an investor.  I know investors that have been investing for several years, and they still get their head handed to them on a plate sometimes.  It’s going to happen.  But how will you handle it if you lose greatly on a deal? 

Fortunately with the lease option program that we’ve developed, there is almost no risk, but there have still been times where at the end of the day I ended up making nothing or possibly even losing some money on a deal.  Or maybe something happened that of course was completely out of my control, but the fingers were still pointed at me.  Those are frustrating times when you are trying to do the right thing, and you end up wasting your time and money to help someone. 

I’ve developed my program to be as cookie cutter as possible, but it still comes down to the individual.  I trained a couple about 5 years ago and they just could NOT get the program working.  It wasn’t the program, but them.  They just weren’t cut out for it, simply because they lacked confidence.  I worked with them and worked with them, but at the end of the day, they couldn’t sell a glass of water to someone in the desert, because they just lacked confidence.   There was another couple that when we tried to discuss even the easiest, simplest task of our lease option program, they both looked like deer in headlights, and would ask the same questions, over and over and over.  I don’t care what method of investing someone is looking at, it comes down to the individual.

Bottom line, if you think that you should get into real estate because you will make a ton of money with almost no effort, then you may want to stick to the lottery. 

My Beef with Gurus Part 5 of 5

Can you imagine charging someone to teach them how to build a house...if you're not even a builder?

Or how about paying someone to teach you to fly a plane, who doesn't actually fly planes?

Sounds weird huh?

Well, that's exactly what some of the guru's do when they offer their weekend bootcamp courses. 

They claim they're going to teach you how to make big money buying foreclosed homes, or buying notes, or 10 other ways to make money in real estate.  Except...they don't actually DO what they are supposed to be teaching YOU!

How would you like to pay out thousands of dollars to learn how to supposedly do something, from someone that doesn't actually do what they are getting paid to teach you?

I know, sounds confusing!

There is a book that I highly recommend called "The Richest Man in Babylon" that you've probably heard of before.  In it, there is a passage about a man giving his money to a brickmaker to invest in rich jewels, hoping for a big return on his investment.  Well, the brickmaker ends up buying pieces of glass, and the man loses all of his investment.  Obviously the man is going to lose his money, because why would you give your money to a brickmaker to invest in jewels?  The guy is a brickmaker, not a jewel expert.  

This same story relates to trying to learn real estate investing from someone that doesn't actually do it.....or that isn't successful at it!

My course is ONLY on lease options, and even more specifically, my lease option PROGRAM.  

That's it.  That's ALL I teach because that's what I actually DO.  Everyday!

If you want to learn wholesale note buying..I'm not your guy! 

There is no way I'm going to pretend to be an expert in something that I don't actively participate in, just so I can sell some books. 

And if you are looking for education and training on real estate, then you need to do your homework, and make sure the person you are about to pay to train you actively practices what they preach, AND that they are successful at it.  Don't be fooled by they pretty DVD cases, and all the glitz put on by the presenter.  You want to learn from someone that actually practices what they preach.  Make them prove to you that they are active and successful in the trade they are going to teach you.