A Decade a Real Estate Investing

After a decade as a professional real estate investor I have learned a number of important factors that I keep in mind when I look at every deal. I would like to share my insights with you, please keep in mind that these are insights that I have found to be meaningful to me, you may have no need for any of them and feel free to add your own insights to the list as well.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: If there was one thing, the most important thing that I did as a real estate investor, it was to act. Even if you completely screw up and pay too much for a property, with time you will still be far ahead of your peers and certainly farther ahead than you would be if you didn’t act.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Move the decimal point in your mind. You only make big deals by doing big deals. You only buy properties by making offers. You only make offers after you’ve looked at properties. Get involved and make things happen

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: In the final analysis, a property is worth ONLY what a ready, willing and able buyer is willing to pay for it. If a listed property is still on the market, which means that no one has offered the listed price. Offer less. This is not a popularity contest. This is business. You buy low and sell high 

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: To achieve maximum results, champions learn the power of concentration. They can focus. Become a championship level investor. Only venture outside your area of expertise at your own peril. Stick to your small specific investment area. It’s what you’ll know. It’s all you’ll need. 

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: When I teach real estate investment seminars, I am always asked, “Aren’t you worried that other people are going to take your ideas and take all of the best opportunities away from you?” No. First, most people aren’t going to do the research. Second, very few of the people who do the research are going to translate their knowledge into action. Third, it doesn’t matter. I wish them luck, because there are too many opportunities and possibilities in any investment area for any individual or even any group of individuals

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Don’t relinquish control of your real estate future to just any real estate agent. You want a knowledgeable adviser with a database full of contacts. You don’t want a high-pressure, desperate salesperson.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Did you know that most peoples’ salaries fall within a range of 10% – 20% of their closest friends’ salaries? The answer is to have ambitious successful friends, because you’ll be just like them!

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Meet other area investors. Find out which agents they work with and whose services they can recommend. If there isn’t an agent who stands out, there is certainly an opportunity for you or someone else. You may find that there are a hundred agents chasing the same few single-family homebuyers while the investors are being ignored. 

• Real Estate Monkey Tip:. The primary motivation of all sellers is not always to get top dollar. Many people want to move or have to move for a wide variety of reasons. These sellers don’t want to give their properties away, but they don’t want to wait around for six months either. They want action. You are a person of action. 

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Even if you feel confident physically evaluating a property, it makes sense to bring another set of trained hands with you. The other person may find a flaw or a benefit that you miss. Remember, you are always thinking highest and best use. What can you do to this property to raise the income and/or enhance it’s value?

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: There will always be other deals. You have to know what you want. You have to know what you will and won’t accept. You have to be willing to walk away.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: This is business. This is a business involving tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Plan accordingly. You don’t need to be an amateur psychologist trying to figure out the seller’s motivation to sell. Know what you want.  Most sellers are perfectly capable of representing their own interests or hiring competent assistance. You are not in this deal to make friends or to impress anyone. This is business. Act professionally. Let the The Real Estate Monkey Method of Real Estate Investing be your guide.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Remember the deal. Would you rather have a $300,000 property, which you are buying for $300,000 with a 6% loan or a $300,000 property, which you are buying for $250,000 with a 9% loan? Close the deal.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: You pay for the bank appraisal, but the appraiser works for the interest of the bank. However, it is in the interest of the bank to lend you money. The bank makes money by lending you money. Think of the appraiser as a facilitator and not an adversary.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: On every deal, you can ask in your offer if the seller will participate in the financing. If the answer is positive, you may be able to save your down payment funds for your next deal. You don’t know if you don’t ask! Also, this is your deal. You may not want to make a small down payment but would prefer lower monthly payments by making a down payment of 25% or more. You choose.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: This buying and selling doesn’t have to go on forever. It only has to go on until you are satisfied with the size of your investment portfolio. This can take a year or five years. This isn’t the stock market. You are in control in this business. When you choose, you can stop and wait for your properties to appreciate and your rents to rise.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: This is the beauty of real estate. You are dealing with big numbers, so the profits are big. Profits of ten or twenty percent when buying and selling yield significant financial rewards to anyone savvy enough to study the real estate market and bold enough to act upon the knowledge they gain.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Part of your job is to help your spouse to understand your investment objectives. Real estate is a means to an end. Real estate is your part-time business. You are investing to secure the financial future of the whole family. You don’t want to be married to a person who is going to balk when you put the house up for sale or refinance. You need your spouse to be your understanding partner. You want encouragement and not whining or second-guessing. You want someone who is going to say with enthusiasm, “Yes, we should buy the $20,000 car rather than the $35,000 car because we can use the difference to invest in another property”. You must take the time to explain investing. Investing is when you sacrifice today for a richer tomorrow. Make sure you have the home team support, routing you to victory. Read and discuss an Action Principle each day as a family.    

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Don’t fall in love with any property that you buy. You can sell them for a profit. You pay your capital gains tax. You buy another property. You do NOT want to love your properties that you are holding for long-term investment. 

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: You have two routes to gaining the investment funds necessary to accelerate your acquisition program. You can buy a property and increase the income through rehab or better management and, then, refinance. Or, you can buy with the intent of reselling at a profit. You must know the fundamentals of marketing real estate.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Money alone won’t make you happy. There are many wealthy people who are miserable. Committing to self-improvement and service will make you happy.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: You can’t find all you need to know by taking this course, reading a book or surfing the Internet, you’ve got to get out into the field. This is your job to research your investment area. You’ve got to see the different types of properties in all price ranges. You’ve got to speak with sellers and agents and tenants and lenders and local officials and other agents. And speaking really means to do a lot of listening.

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Some brokers do not like to share their listings with other agents and other offices. They want to sell the properties themselves. Be aware that if your listing agent is cooperating with other offices, the commission split is 50/50. If the commission split is less than 50/50, other brokers may not be interested in showing your property to their prospective buyers. 

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Harry Helmsley and Lew Rudin were two independent investors who owned billions of dollars of New York real estate. Harry and Lew had similar investment strategies, Never Sell Anything.  The means to the end are different, but the end results are the same – prosperity and financial independence. There are many roads to success. There is only one sure way to failure – do nothing. 

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: If someone really wants to buy your property, is there a price at which you will sell it to him or her? Know that price. 

• Real Estate Monkey Tip: Offers: Some will, some won’t, so what, next. No one wins them all, especially when making offers. You don’t have to win them all. You don’t have to win most. You only have to win some. If you win some, you will prosper. You will make your fortune.  Remember, in baseball if you hit a mere 1 out 3 you will make the Hall of Fame