What do you think the biggest challenges new real estate investors face? What advice would you give new investors to overcome these challenges?
How important is it to network in real estate investing?
HOW TO GET STARTED INVESTING IN DISTRESSED REAL ESTATE LEX LEVINRAD
What do you think the biggest challenges new real estate investors face? What advice would you give new investors to overcome these challenges?
Since I have trained thousands of students on investing in real estate I can pin point two common characteristics, or traits that hinder most new students. Ironically, it is not lack of money or lack of credit, although most new investors think that is what hinders them.
In reality, what hinders most people is themselves. They have preconceived notions of work and how to make money that are so ingrained that they have to essentially be deprogrammed. From a young age we are taught to go to school, get good grades and get a good job and work hard. That is not how you get wealthy. That is how you get stuck – which is indeed where most people find themselves.
Breaking away from your own selflimiting beliefs can be very challenging for new investors. It is also not something we can teach. The second challenge is education. Many people will simply not apply themselves enough or be willing to put in the hard work that it will take to learn the mechanics of understanding wholesale real estate. There are many moving parts but everyone just wants to get rich quick. And unfortunately for them, there are many companies out there that will take advantage of that and oversell“ get rich quick” real estate systems.
They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. That is 5 years assuming 2,000 hours in a year. That is a long time. Now it might not take 5 years to learn how to flip houses, but most people would not be willing to commit to that kind of effort to be successful and to change their life, their net worth and their financial situation. Those that are willing to make that sacrifice can achieve phenomenal success investing in real estate. And of course many do indeed change their lives. I have many students that are examples of that.
How important is it to network in real estate investing?
It is very important since if you are buying and selling deals all day then you need to have people feeding you deals and you need to have buyers calling you. Most new investors don’ t understand this and want to do everything by themselves. Everything we do, every deal we sell is partnered with someone. We have banks, real estate agents, students and other wholesalers feeding us deals every single day. And we have a huge database of cash buyers calling our office looking for deals. Networking is very important.