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BlogArrowPersonal DevelopmentArrowShould You Be a Jack Of All Trades And Master Of None?
Personal Development

Should You Be a Jack Of All Trades And Master Of None?

John Fedro
Expertise: Personal Development, Real Estate Investing Basics, Business Management, Mobile Homes, Real Estate News & Commentary, Landlording & Rental Properties, Mortgages & Creative Financing, Real Estate Marketing
224 Articles Written
Real Estate Investor

A number of years after starting to invest in manufactured homes, and to a lesser extent single family homes, I was still under the impression that as a real estate investor not only do we have to know all aspects of our craft but we also have to be masters of all these areas at every given moment. I learned years later I was incorrect.

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In reality a successful and happy real estate investor can become so by only truly mastering just a few aspects of his or her real estate investing scope-of-duties.

Allow me to clarify and hopefully bring some clarity and ease to your investing business.

As investors we ideally should know every step needed from start to finish with regards to properly investing in the types of real estate that excite us. A common expression that you must perform multiple duties is to “wear multiple hats” with regards to real estate investing.

While it is vitally important to have an understanding of each task needed you will not need to become an expert in every area. In fact your personality-type and natural propensity for handing situations may actually hurt certain areas of your business.

  • Are you a people person?
  • Do you understand numbers well?
  • Can you estimate repairs?
  • Do you consider yourself patient?

Let’s break real estate investing down into 2 areas of importance. Speaking only to investor that are not passive; your duties can be looked at as green for most important and red for least important. I use the word “important” to describe tasks that must be handled with the most care and skill. Ideally many investors would choose to handle these cash-producing tasks themselves.

While almost every area of your investing business can be outsourced keep in mind that the list below is designed for the average investor that has little money to hire multiple employees and/or does not wish to partner with multiple parties to close deals. Instead the list below is an outline of the tasks which require the most care (in green) and those task which simply need to get done efficiently (in red).

Red Tasks That Can Be Outsourced Easily:

  • Implementing and carrying out the marketing and advertising of your business to buyers and sellers. I.e. Mailing letters, hanging signs, online and offline marketing, news print ads, etc.
  • Showing homes to potential buyers.
  • Pre-screening sellers and buyers over the phone.
  • Meeting with buyers face to face.
  • Making repairs to your properties.
  • Estimating repairs to potential investments.
  • Managing your properties and serving notices.
  • Finding and attracting new leads.
  • Orchestrating the closing of a property to buy or sell
  • Closing of a property to buy or sell

Green Tasks Which You May Wish to Perform Yourself:

  • Building rapport with sellers on face-to-face appointments.
  • Creating purchase offers.
  • Delivering said purchase offers to sellers, following up with same sellers, and negotiating directly with sellers (assuming no Realtor is involved).
  • Brain storming advertising methods and game-plans
  • Raising private money
  • Networking with other investors, park managers, and others who can bring you more leads

As you can see the most important tasks are the ones that require you put your “face” out to the public or the tasks which require the deal-structuring of a property up until the point of contract to purchase.

Please note that if you are simply a capital investor that spends money and credit to buy properties you will be able to outsource almost every aspects of your business.

Please comment below and let me know if you agree or disagree with the list above. Let us know what you would add or take away from each list. Indeed everyone is unique and the goal of this article is to inform you that options to outsource your least favorite tasks are available.

Photo:[martin]

By John Fedro
Investing since 2002, John started in real estate accidentally with a four-bedroom mobile home inside of a pre-existing mobile home park. Over the next 11 months, John added 10 more mobile homes to...
Read more
Investing since 2002, John started in real estate accidentally with a four-bedroom mobile home inside of a pre-existing mobile home park. Over the next 11 months, John added 10 more mobile homes to his cash-flowing portfolio. Since these early years, John has gone on to help 150+ sellers and buyers sell their unwanted mobile homes and obtain a safe and affordable manufactured home of their own. Years later, John keeps to what has been successful—buying, fixing, renting, and reselling affordable housing known as mobile homes. John shares his stories, experiences, lessons, and insights of other successful mobile home investors he helps on his blog and YouTube channel and has written over 300 articles concerning mobile homes and mobile home investing for the BiggerPockets Blog. He has also been a featured podcast guest on BiggerPockets and other prominent real estate podcasts, authored a highly-rated book aimed at increasing the happiness/satisfaction of average real estate investors, and spoken to national and international audiences concerning the opportunities and practicality of successfully investing in mobile homes.
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4 Replies
    Gabe Sanders
    Replied over 7 years ago
    Excellent advice, John. Being able to see the big picture and managing to a successful conclusion are probably the most important skills to master.

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    Amy Arata
    Replied over 7 years ago
    As a real estate broker, I can list my homes myself yet have all the licensed agents in the state do the showings for me. I prefer this, as I still save half the commission and avoid a conflict of interest situation. Other agents are often relieved when they find that I’m a professional who doesn’t have an emotional stake in the sale and am motivated to do what it takes to get to closing.

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    Galya
    Replied about 7 years ago
    In some specific markets where competition is high, you may want to personally do marketing and advertising of your business, especially if your non real estate job helps you in this. In addtion, you may want to personally show homes to potential renters, works better when traditional screening isn’t applicable, ex.foreing citizents. This way, you can do screening at the same time.

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    Andrei Shindyapin from Cary, North Carolina
    Replied about 5 years ago
    The full jack-of-all-trades quote goes like this: “Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one. ” Sounds like it’s (somewhat) applicable here.

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