Why Some Real Estate Investors Won’t Realize Their Full Potential
By JD Esajian on January 8, 2016
Do you want to become the best real estate investor you can be? If you want to join the elite ranks of the real estate club, you’re going to have to do some things substantially different than others. Let’s take a look at some of the things holding real estate investors back from realizing their true potential:
They Don’t Think Big Enough
If you’ve got a goal of $1M, and only put the strategies and elements into play to strive for that, it is very unlikely you’ll just accidentally breeze by that and hit $1B. You’ve got to think a billion dollars big, or bigger!
They Spend All They Make
If you simply spend all you make and never build up any net worth, you aren’t going to get very far up the list. Too many real estate investors fall into this trap. Some make great money. Some makes millions each year, but blow it just as fast. If that cash flow takes a breather, and you’ve got $100k in monthly bills to cover, it isn’t long before you’ll be asking for referrals to bankruptcy attorneys.
They Don’t Have a Business
The Detroit Free Press reports that just 8 CEOs scored $60 BILLION in 2015 alone. Among them are Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, and Marc Benioff. There are real estate investor billionaires that have no doubt done well for themselves over the last year too. Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, and Sam Zell are just some of them. When you own a business your wealth can scale quickly. Even if you own a small part of it like Bezos a modest rise can help a lot. He owns 18% of Amazon, which saw stock value soar over 120% last year, taking to be worth over $300B. You don’t have to have a public company either. Look at Airbnb which is now valued at over $25B; more than big chains Hyatt, Holiday Inn, and Wyndham. If you want to supersize your wealth; formalize a real estate business and leverage a team.
They Fail to Control Their Future
Many real estate investors make big strides toward this goal and pile up millions, then they lose it all. They see the market, hurricanes, and bad tenants and partners as things out of control, and unexpected, that just happen to them. So why do some thrive in these times and still come out with billions, and others end up in the soup line? You don’t want to be that guy who was a billionaire real estate investor, and is now flipping burgers. Those that stay on top recognize that it is up to them to be prepared for all potential outcomes, and to invest as much effort in protecting themselves as growing. This includes insurance, great attorneys, having written agreements, and more.
Not Thinking Far Enough Ahead
Most are not thinking far enough ahead. How far out do your plans go? Do you have a 5 year plan? How about 100 year plan? Are you investing and building, and scaling, and putting the right things in play to build wealth and make it last 100 years, or just 5?
Invest Differently
The biggest names in real estate history, and even more recent ones like Sam Zell invest differently than everyone else. They sell what others are buying, buy and hold when others are selling.
Influencer Status
Bloomberg and Zell in particular are known for also investing in media and news companies. Some like Bloomberg and Trump also get into politics. They don’t settle for following the ticker feed, and garbled statistics in the media. They make the news. They make the moves and others try to invest like them. They understand they can influence the markets by controlling what the media says.
We’re in a new year. This is your chance to put all the above into play, and to shoot for billionaire status.