BiggerPockets

I'm trying to figure out the difference between investors who do, and investors who just talk about investing.....

What finally motivated you to start investing in real estate? What I'm actually really interested in is what made you finally act on your interest in real estate, as opposed to merely thinking about it.

I'm with Jeff, sometimes opportunity knocks, sometimes it just walks past you and you have to run to the sidewalk, stop him and invite him in for a drink!

I was "lucky" enough to be in the process of a job transfer from the San Francisco area to Houston TX in the midst of the proposition 13 election in '78. If you don't know what that was, and it's current ramifications for the state of CA just google it to find out more. Prospective buyers would ask, "how much are your property taxes?". The answer was, somewhere between $700 and $2200/year, depending on how the election turns out. "Oh no! I couldn't buy a house without knowing what the taxes will be!" They all said. So I kept the house and sold it 25 years later for $270K instead of $50K. If you want to do the math, that's not an extraordary rate of return for a LT investment, but it did have a positiive cash flow for 24 of the 25 years.

Anyway, that got me off to a start. Since then I've bought and sold close to 100 properties, did rentals for a long time, now I strictly flip and seller finance them.

I try to star away from negative people and nay-sayers, although a LOT of people who've read my posts here and elselwhere think I'm pretty negative on most gurus and "get rich quick" schemes advertised today. RE is a great investment vehicle IF YOU CAN DO IT ALL YOURSELF. If you have to cut anyone else in on your profits I don't think it's that good.

99% of the people who call themselves RE investors, have never bought and will never buy an investment property. They paid for a course sold by a huckster, may have even found a few potential deals, but they lack one of the important W's, either WILL or WHEREWITHALL.

all cash

Hello all...

For me the thing that got me started was MASSIVE ACTION. People always have fears of failing, looking stupid, and rejection. The people that are succesfull in life are the people that have mastered the art of ACTION.

Jared

Some people just get tired of being poor and seeing all their friends get wealthy. It is quite inspiring! A great motivator

The thing that finally got me investing was finding the right agent. And it was nothing more than dumb luck at that!

I thought about buying a house that had gone to foreclosure. I spoke with the agent that was there and made an off-hand remark that I was thinking about investing. Lo and behold, she told me that she had been investing herself for about 10 years. She and I talked (she taught me a lot) and after 3 months of searching we found a good building for me to start out with. Funny enough, it was one of the buildings that she owned. It was a rehab job that she had done herself and even at that she sold it to me for a fair (not great, but nice) price.

The mere fact of wanting something different for yourself. Knowing that there is a better life out there just for tha asking.

Some people are afraid to go to a REIA let alone a seminar. To these people investing is "Pie in the Sky".

Those that do...do

my 2 sense

My sister bought in the 70's and I have invested off and on. When my daughter got out of college with too much debt I told her real estate is the ONLY way she can retire this debt. I helped her buy a great bungalow for $110K, she took a roommate and made the mortgage payment...a year later sold it for $135k and bought something bigger in a better block.

She spent a fortune rehabbing/living in that one..and after 5 years took on the financing. She's building a large house on the coast right now because she learned from the small investments that really aren't small anymore.

She's been in real estate for 8 years now and the triplex will be her only retirement plus there's the cash flow. It's great to help your kid learn early on about real estate. Gives them something $$$ can't buy.

For me..it was a financial crunch. I knew it was getting close to the end and had to make money out of thin air to get started. From their on, its getting only better by the day.

I grew up in a family that didn't have a lot of money and my dad was laid off quite a bit. So when all my friends were walking around in their new leather shoes after Christmas, I was walking around in my converse chucks. I didn't want my children to have to live a life with nothing. I paid for college with a credit card. Believe it or not, I got interested when I saw Carlton Sheets on TV. I later found that most of those deals do not work, but he inspired me. I made several offers from what I learned from Carleton and people laughed at me. I then ran into a Realtor that helped me out a little bit and I was on my way.

I don't believe in the TV informercials either but it is motivating to catch them on TV and see the deals people talk about. I am sure most are not real deals, but if you take out the deal, the concept of making a lot of money in Real Estate is real! It takes a while but very possible to retire rich one day!

I have been pondering this same subject, it seems there are endless people who know what to do, but very few who do what they know.

Its in those moments of living in the now that people begin to move forward. People need to begin to think more like 5 year olds. If you want to learn how to take action watch a 5 year old. If they want a friend they go talk to people, if they want a cookie they find one, if they are mad at you they tell you. Adults should use this same philosophy, if you want to invest start investing.

Too many people spend all of their waking hours in analysis paralysis, getting ready to get ready, preparing to prepare, Start doing something besides reading. One of the main factors that moved me forward in investing was

Action
Compensates
Tremedously

Act, do something, anything to move you toward where you want to go. This is not some motivational thing that I read, it is just what I have found to be true. Action is what makes you the money. You can know all of the real estate rules in the world but until you take action nothing will happen.