BiggerPockets

Property related question but a good one in general terms...Im new but would love to hear others storys....For me it would be the classic of

reading rich dad poor dad alot sooner then i did. It would have put on this path to bigger pockets alot sooner... :cool:

I would have started a lot younger than I did. I would have bought a duplex and lived in half for the first few years of home ownership, and then rented out both sides.. I would have put my money into rentals, rather than stocks and mutual funds, I would have avoided a war zone instead of saying "but look at the cash flow." I would have sought out REI mentors 20 years ago. All that said, I don't regret anything.

i agree to all the above :)

I started at the right age, but what I did was marry the wrong person. Took me 12 years and half my investments to get away from that.

So, besides making good investments, be sure to make all the other right decisions. Getting married (including have a pre-nuptial), having children, being very cautious on whom you partner with, having the right insurances, having your taxes done correctly, and so much more. Any one thing done wrong can have serious affects on your investment portfolio.

If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week. - -- Charles Darwin

wow .. where do I start?? lol to keep it simple , I will say this. I wish that I would have never walked away from real estate to start a completely different business. I had 6 rental properties plus my own house and l liquidated all of them to start up a new business venture that could not possibly fail ( until it failed).

The flip side to that is that I sold my houses at the top of the market just before the market fell - so I looked real smart to people that knew I had real estate. Unfortunately I lost all my money at the same time everyone was losing their money in the stock market - so I lost it like every else - guess I had a lot more fun losing it - rather than watching little credits go down on a screen everyday - i was operating a business and enjoying making customers etc. Though it didnt last , I feel like I could have lost the money in worst ways I guess.

I have started over from scratch again and my main focus now ( aside from writing real estate software for Android) is to stay focused on real estate and not turn my back on it again. I Would have been a multimillionaire by now if I had held on to my units. I am now seeing all sorts of investments that I could have purchased for cash - but have none now :(

in summary, BIGGEST REGRET: leaving real estate

Make more mistakes. Live life harder. Woke up earlier. Went to bed later.

Not that I have a tremendous amount of perspective to share...but I would have been a bit more cautious when I first started investing instead of buying a lot in my first few years. It is tough to know the line between analysis paralysis and getting your hands dirty.

Had I known more I would have made some better investments early on, but that is how you learn I guess.

Someone sent me a pm on this, taking me too seriously. What I mean is I wouldn't start by land lording. I would start with a cash business and invest that cash into land lording.

Punched my roommate in the face when he said "Dude! You know you can take out the Max on student loans and live on them and not have to work!"

That was so dumb. I would do anything to have started at zero right out of school.

But I am here because of those days, so I can't complain!