Skip to content
Home Blog Personal Development & Goals

Real Estate Is Like A Roller Coaster (Learn To Enjoy The Ride!)

Glenn Schworm
4 min read

Fellow Investors, are you enjoying the Roller Coaster?

If you are actively investing in any capacity, you are on a roller coaster!

My question to all of us is….Are you enjoying the ride?

Where I Have Been And What Have I’ve Been Up To?

I have not written consistently for many months now, but I read or at least skim all of the articles.

What a great collection of industry leaders Josh and Brandon have pulled together here at Bigger Pockets. When I stopped writing we were extremely busy and I was not making the time.

We closed out 2013 with 45 flips and that was occupying most of my time, even with a good (decent) system in place. We went from being incredibly swamped, to moving at a glacial pace for the next several months.

Why?

Well, rather than spend much time on that answer, we decided to add more money to marketing and to continue to grow. Last week we purchased what appears to be a WHALE for us. I will post more about it as it plays out, but it is the kind of deal that many of us search for and don’t often find. If I had jumped off the ride when it was slow, we would have never found that deal.

In my opinion, investing mirrors life in so many ways. Life is full of ups and downs, but we press on. The same is so true with our businesses. No matter what your specialty is, if you are all in and really working it, you WILL have consistent ups and downs.

Don’t Get Off The Ride!

The secret from those of us who have achieved a certain level of success is this:

Don’t get off the ride because it is slow or seems to be at a stop, ever!

Sometimes you will even need to get out and push that sucker to get it moving again, and most likely that will be the really HARD part. (Imagine paying for that ride?…Wait, I have to get off and do WHAT if it stops??) I do not know the actual number but my guess is that close to 99% of all people quit when the going gets tough.

Related: Want To Be The Best? Maybe You Should Start Quitting!

I get it, the hard stuff is hard, no two ways around it. But what most people don’t realize is that great things are just on the other side of the hard stuff.

What Are Some Hard Things In Your World?

Here are some of mine:

  • A Deal falls through and you needed the money
  • Lose money on a flip you thought was solid
  • People stealing money and/or supplies
  • Contractors give you a hard time
  • Contractors give you a hard time
  • Contractors give you a hard time
  • Contractors give you a hard time
  • Did I mention contractors giving you a hard time?? (you fellow investors are all smiling right now … I can feel it!)
  • A house does not get offers for several months despite your best attempts
  • You have to fire employees or contractors (they can be tough you know!)
  • Sellers decide they will not sell to “a Flipper” (this recently happened to me for the first time, and I loved the deal so it was very aggravating)
  • Marketing plan does not pan out as expected
  • and on and on…

Anybody can enjoy the ride when it is easy, and full of all the great and fun parts:

  • Selling a deal for full price before it hits the market
  • Making a solid profit $50k- $100K+
  • Being flush with cash from steady business successes
  • Press finds you and writes very favorable articles about you
  • Investors come from everywhere to give you money to invest
  • Sellers take your first offer with no counter
  • Having more leads than you know what to do with

We all invest to experience the great and fun parts we have heard about. Lets be honest, we never start by saying, “I can’t wait until I lose money on a deal! It’ll be AWESOME to lose it all!!!!!”

If you did start with that mindset, you may want to seek professional mental help! We all start for the fun and positive sides of investing, but what most don’t tell you is that investing is exactly like life, you have to experience the hard parts to appreciate and even be in a position to have the great parts.

If you don’t eat right and feel the burn of exercise, odds are you won’t be in good shape. If you don’t train hard for a marathon you will most likely fail miserably. Most people don’t do the work required long enough and smart enough to experience all the greatness they can enjoy.

Related: 14 Things Every Real Estate Investor Should Do Every Single Day

If you get off the ride when it tells you to get out and push, your ride is over, simple as that. For those of you who are in the back pushing your ride right now, my hat goes off to you and you have my respect.

Learn to enjoy the roller coaster with all of it’s ups and downs. The downs can be tough if you allow them to be, but the highs will be a ton of fun if you stay on long enough.

When you hit them, learn to take them in and enjoy, because they don’t last forever. Hey if you want the slow and steady ride, there is always the merry-go-round!

It goes round and round with no highs and lows, it is the safe road that many of your friends are on. Most of us call it a JOB. Nothing wrong with it, it goes round and round and is very predictable. For me, I will stay on the roller coaster and keep working for those high’s, because they are so worth it!

Anybody care to join me?

Be sure to leave your comments below!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.