铁华
做房东的坎坷经历
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Books/Courses (by LL [AZ]) Posted on: Jan 1, 2011 2:40 PM
Message:
Shawn, first, good for you. You don't say how old your are, so this diatribe is aimed pretty much at anyone. Along with Roy's and others good advice here's some suggestions. To paraphrase Tony Robbins, "take action." You are doing that with your post. Take an action step every day toward your goals. Whether it's reading a book, going to open houses, learning about financing, or buying that first property. You are doing this in one of the best buyers markets in history. Especially in FL. The market will continue, there's going to be 80 million baby boomers, many will be retiring to the sun belt. These markets will recover and excel again. So don't feel you need to rush into anything. There will still be deals down the road. Do not jump until you have some knowledge, or you could end up like many others in the bankruptcy net. Just like if you wanted to be a truck driver, you would read about trucks, talk to truck drivers, and learn how to drive and FIX a truck before you spent 100K to buy one. You might even work for someone for awhile to make sure that you really did want to drive a truck for a long time. Driving a truck requires a lot of dirty work, often with long hours, and isn't for everyone. Same with real estate. Real estate investing is not like a job you can quit if you don't like it after a few months. It can be a lifetime involvement, and is for many people - many people who are now worth a LOT of money! In this market, once you are in, you might be in for a long, long time. Landlording is not for the weak, lazy or timid. If you have any of those qualities stick to a 9 to 5 with paid medical, vacation days, and a 401K, you will do better in the long run. The days of passive investment, letting someone else manage, while your property appreciated at 25% a year and even a moron with zero due diligence could make a fortune, are gone for the most part. But there are STILL great opportunities to make money in real estate. You can still pull out 25% flips, you can now once again get fabulous rental returns - in the right markets and the right locations within those markets. Sites like this, and the Internet in general can be a treasure trove of information that wasn't available 10 years ago. The data mining available now is enormous. I can tell you virtually everything about a market in an hour, that 15 years ago would have take weeks on the ground. But the fundamentals have not changed. I still personally "walk" every property before I finalize a deal. Now - regarding your question on books and courses. Read everything you can get your hands on. If you can, start at your local library. You can waste a lot of money on "how to" books that don't tell you anything. Same with courses. Most of the "free seminars" are simply upsells and don't impart anything. But they are worth going to because you meet other like minded people and they will renew your inspiration. Find a mentor, and "model" off successful people. You don't have to re-invent the wheel, all you have to do is copy what other people are doing and do the same. The only actual course I ever took was with Tony Robbins about 15-20 years ago when he was really in his prime. His course is nothing about real estate, but about success. I've occasionally run into him since at parties and every time I do I'm inspired once again. I attribute much of the fact that I now live in a million dollar SoCal beach house to what I learned from him. I've also had occasion to talk a couple of times with Armando Montelongo, of TV's "Flip this House." He lives a few miles down the coast from me, and has a great deal of charisma. I think if you are willing to pay the fees to get him to personally mentor you, and if you have the guts to listen to him and act, he will teach you a lot. But he's like me (a little flamboyant - but heck what's the point of making money if you can't enjoy it) and has zero tolerance for suffering fools. If you think you might be a fool, save your money or he will part you from it, with a smile. My personal mentor for the past 10 years or so has been Marshall Reddick. He also lives near me. We used to have our office in one of his buildings back before he bought and subsequently lost it. We used to use his condo in Hawaii before the crash. Those were the days! Everyone was rolling in money, and flips sold before you even started for 50K more. His "network" took a heavy hit during the bust, because (I think) even Marshall thought there had been a paradigm shift in the economics or real estate, that it would go up forever, and they over leveraged. Marshall ended up in bankruptcy, as did many investors. I remember the days when 400 people would show up for his seminars, and people were lined up to buy properties out of state sight unseen. And I remember the day he told us about the bankruptcy. He came down to San Diego where I was living at the time. We met at the Assoc of Realtors, there was only about 8 of us left. We all cried. My point here is, listen to the gurus, learn all you can from them, but in the end, use your own experience and listen to yourself. I learned about leveraging real estate when I went broke during the FL bust of the 1980's. This time around I got into cash when I saw things collapsing. My only big mistake was in not selling our primary home too. Like everyone we are hard hit, I've lost about 1.5 million dollars, I'm back to climbing under sinks with a pipe wrench, but we are going to come out OK, I think. I have a saying, left over from mountain climbing with my father, "keep putting one foot in front of the other until you can't move your feet anymore, then get up off the ground and start moving again." Donald Trump built a fortune, failed and started again, Reddick lost a lot, but not everything and he is back to marketing foreclosures, I'm on my third time around the merry-go-round. You just need to keep moving forward. But unlike mountain climbing, if there are those who would hold you back, leave them behind. So, for my final New Years advice to newbies, if you have bothered to read this far. 1) Read - start at the library and the Internet. That way you can separate out the BS books from the ones with useful content. I have a library of several hundred books on real estate and law and how to get rich quick. Books will NOT make you rich. 2) Model successful people (and realize they are just people too, and make mistakes too - don't let their mistakes become yours) and take action toward your goals. Get rid of the anchors around your neck. But bring the good people up the ladder with you. 3) Take community college classes in real estate and business. You will learn more than most of the paid courses. Real Estate is about law. To be truly successful you need to know almost as much as a lawyer in this specialty. Private seminars can also be worthwhile. But guard your money. Learn "real" apprasial, how to do Realtor quality comparative analysis - not the guesstimates most investors make. Learn finance methods, and laws. These change daily. I can't even keep up. 4) Learn construction and appliance repair. If you can't work in the field, take community college classes, they will give you at least enough knowledge to know when you are getting ripped off. If you don't have the skills, equipment, labor help, etc. You are going to pay more for repairs. Even if you contract everything, you have to know the job and watch the workers, or 1/2 the time you will be doing the work again. 5) Do not over leverage. 6) Walk every property personally. If you don't know what you are doing, get an inspector. Stick to the old adages. "Buy location." The days of buying a house on the freeway in LA and flipping it for 500K are over. "Buy the worst house in the best neighborhood." But only fix it up to slightly above the average. Don't try to build the Taj Mahal in a ghetto. 7) Don't buy condos. Period. Unless for a vacation home. See other posts on this subject. 8) Go to open houses. Visit apartment complexes as a possible tenant. Get their applications and info. See what their quality and amenities are. I go to open houses nearly every Sunday wherever I am. I look at new and old. I want to know what the trends are. Talk to Realtors, ask about the markets and where they see trends moving. Talk to other landlords. 9) Stage your properties, demand attention to detail, impart curb appeal. A property sells or rents in the first 30 seconds. You want a "Wow!" factor. Even if the "wow" is only a tenement with low rent. 10) Finally. Learn, listen, look, then leap. Start off small. No matter how much you learn there will still be a learning curve. Walk, then run. I am STILL learning every day. Good Luck! |
