My head is still spinning, or swimming, or whatever the expression is when you’re overwhelmed with ideas and information about your line of work. Mine is real estate investing, and I recently spent a Saturday at a “success summit” staged for investors by, of course, other investors.
I attend a lot of these things. Probably most of what I know about real estate was conveyed in a class, a seminar, a Tuesday night mixer, or a weekend boot camp staged and sponsored by a guru or other investors. Some of ‘em were free, some required a nominal fee, and some were very costly (like a couple grand, although some of those were discounted).
Which is to say I’m still a relative novice. If “most” of what you know was picked up in training classes, it means you’re not doing many deals. Because it’s in doing deals that you really learn. In my case, in my first year, I completed several fix-and-flips and made dozens of formal offers on potential rehab properties. So I’m not a total novice. Just a guy whose experience is outweighed by perhaps an excess of training.
Enough perspective. Seminars are great learning environments. When you come home, you’re ready to conquer the world, except you don’t know where to start. You’re also mentally exhausted, having struggled to understand new financing techniques and marketing methods and investment opportunities. You’ve shaken a few dozen hands and exchanged a lot of business cards and presented your own elevator pitch a bunch of times.
Were you working? Was it work day? It sure felt like one. When you look back on the work week, Saturday was just as strenuous and challenging and any other day.
But now it’s confession time. In my case, having attended more of these events than I can count, the vast majority of them led to nothing. No new business, no new deals, not even any new approaches to marketing. Just a bunch of notes that went into a file.
This time I intend to be different. I am about to list three new ideas to put into practice in my real estate business in the next 30 days. Check back with me for a report on June 8. It is already on my calendar.
The three ideas:
- Peruse the MLS for “stale” listings. These represent sellers who may be unable to lower their price because of too much debt. They may be candidates for “creative” deals such as a “subject to” purchase.
- Obtain a “late list” of homeowners who are not yet in foreclosure, but have missed two or three mortgage payments. Credit bureaus may be the best source. These people may be motivated sellers who haven’t yet been swarmed by investors.
- Hire a virtual assistant—someone to help me with data entry and other computer tasks such as getting my Outlook contacts file in shape. A good source of leads may be Odesk.com or Elance.com.