My Mistake #5: Wasting too much time researching the “best way” to make money in real estate.

Almost 60% of the emails coming to me – and I get a tremendous amount of email every day – usually ask my opinion about the best strategy or the easiest strategy to do real estate investment. Everybody wants to know what is the fastest route of success in real estate investment – preforeclosures, REO’s, rentals, apartment complexes, lease options, subject to deals, getting the deeds, short sales??? What? What? What?

I was in the same exact dilemma five years ago – I researched and printed stuff from the Internet till my Hewlett Packard LaserJet screamed mercy. I printed and read hundreds pages from forums and websites – some of them from guru’s and the other ones from regular real estate investors. Some of the advice was outright great – some of it was downright bad.

All I wanted was a clear cut consensus amongst the real life real estate investors out there who would be kind enough to tell me that here is the “one” best way to start in real estate investment. I wanted one answer – from everybody. And I wasted a long time researching this. It was much later I discover that I was suffering from paralysis of analysis. A bad state of mind where we know what needs to be done but we want to make sure that we know of every single option available out there before we make a move.

Big mistake – not only I wasted valuable time and good deals but I almost talked myself out of real estate investment couple of times due to sheer frustration. Looking back I cannot imagine what I could be doing today if I had not made the move back then – probably traveling 4 days a week, working 60 hours per week, seeing my kids on the weekend.

Here is the truth about the “right way” of doing real estate investment – it depends on you and your circumstances. The amount of money you can access, the kind of credit you have and most importantly the amount of time you can initially invest in your real estate investment business all determine one way or another what you can do.

Important thing is this – instead of researching this industry to death trying to find the best possible way to make money, start making money in one thing and then and only then start learning about what is available out there and slowly expand your business into it.

The reality is that all avenues in real estate, done right, are extremely profitable. The reason being is amount of leverage that could be applied in real estate is phenomenal. And when I say ‘leverage” I don’t mean just money but all kinds of leverage in real estate can make a fortune – using other peoples money, knowledge, resources, time – all fall into the category of “leverage”.

I get emails all the time where somebody challenges me to convince them that preforeclosures are better than REO’s – I don’t have to convince anybody – they are both great for their own reasons or better still they are both just means to an end.

Who cares whether I made $100,000 in the March 2005 in preforeclosures, lease options or selling REO’s??? When I go to my bank they don’t ask me where the money came from? I mean if that is your concern then may be you need to change your bank! J

Opportunity comes in all shape, form and sizes – some deals will make you a tremendous amounts of money, some will make average money and once in a while a deal will break-even for reasons outside your control. Thing to remember is that the people who are making money doing real estate spend more time “doing” it then just “reading” about it.

Start today and try to do one deal – that is all you need to worry about. There is enough time in the world to become the Apartment Goddess of wherever you live or may be you want the Loss Mitigation Officers of all major banks tremble at the mere mention of your name because you have become Mr. Short Sale in North America.

But you still have to do your “FIRST” deal!

So don’t do what I did. Which was to waste precious time doing nothing! 90 days over already in 2005, before we know it I will be wishing you Happy Thanksgiving! Think about what you can do today to have some brand spanking new money in your bank account by May 2005???