The Two Things Every Real Estate Investor Must Possess for Success
I’ve had a lot of time to think about what makes a real estate investor successful. Participating in John Burley’s sessions a couple of weeks ago where it all starts with vision and holding my Success Planning session with new AZREIA members where we focused on purpose, objective and activities got me thinking. You can keep this business really simple, but you need two things and it just so happens everybody already has them. It is just a matter of using them. What are they? A brain and a heart.
A great thing about real estate investing and your brain is you don’t have to possess equal sides. By that I mean your left brain can be larger or your right brain can be larger. It doesn’t matter. IF you are more left brain you will focus or the science of investing. You will understand the numbers. You will work the business model. You will implement systems and controls. You will track your success. If you are more right brained you will do extremely well with the art of investing. You will have creative marketing programs. You will likely do very well with sales and negotiations. Networking will come easy and yield amazing results.
Important! If you are left brained you need to get right-brained people on your team. You need to realize your short-comings and not let them get in the way. Opposite is true for right-brained investors. You need people to work the plan and keep you on track. You need someone to focus on the numbers and the tedious task of running a business.
We always talk about legal, ethical and moral investing at AZREIA. At times that can sound a little clinical. This business is much more than all the legal dotting of the “I”s and crossing the “t ”s. Ethical investing is just minimum standard. Moral investing is about doing the right thing – always. The fact is we can and should go further.
It is a privilege to be a creative real estate investor. The operative word being “creative” means we can structure the deal and therefor the outcome to be best for all participants. It should be a “win” for all parties. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make an exceptional profit. You should. You put the deal together. You are managing the process and are responsible to many peopled. You are taking much of the risk. Yes, you should get paid well. To me “win for all parties” means you should always put yourself in the other party’s shoes and look at the deal from their perspective. View the deal through their brain and their heart. The heart is the emotional aspect. You should never assume you know and understand the emotional perspective on any of the participants. You should try and find out. This includes the seller, the buyer, the tenant/buyer, the private investor and you.
It reminds me a little of the “Wizard of Oz”, specifically the scarecrow and tin man. One thought they needed a brain and one a heart. Turns out they already had them. As real estate investors, we have both, as well, and must use both.
Alan Langston