What if you're bad at math?

Question

Hello all! This might seem like a silly question, but all of the number crunching that happened during tonight's webinar (which was fantastic!) had my head spinning.

Can you be successful at this if you're not good with numbers? I'm guessing that there are tools out there that will help. Any investors here have experience with this?

Thanks!

Alexander Felice · Answer

I enjoy math, and I'll tell you it's hard to find advanced mathematics that are useful for real estate. Everything is pretty basic stuff.

You may feel overwhelmed because of all the new information, and maybe you don't use math that often regularly (like most of us!). That feeling will pass and you'll get accustomed to it pretty quickly I imagine.

Immerse yourself with it and you'll be fine. Avoid it, and it'll reinforce your fears.

Jacob Sampson · Answer

You will find that it is the same equations over and over and over again.  You will be fine.  It's like my father-in-law building homes.  He is horrible at math but does a fantastic job at the few geometric equations he uses over and over again.

Also, keep in mind you wont be a room full of investors scrambling to do math equations and the first one to complete gets to make the offer.  You will have hours or days or weeks to get the numbers figured out.

Hattie Dizmond · Answer

I'm definitely not good at math, but I'm excellent at Excel!!!

The calculations are pretty basic. Once you learn the operations, you just use a calculator. I will never be able to calculate the 70% rule in my head. My brain just doesn't work that way. But, my Android has an app for that. It's called a calculator!

So, while my sister/partner, the engineer, does the math in her head, I do it on my phone. We get the same answer, so jo one cares how we got it. I've built great spreadsheets to do the heavy calculations around financinf and cash flow for me.

Fred Heller · Answer

No worries. That's why God invented calculators.

JD Martin · Answer

Depends on what you mean by "bad at math". If it means you understand concepts but forget to carry the one when you're adding by hand, no problem - use a calculator or a computer program. If it means that you're not very good at conceptualizing what needs to be done, and how much it costs, you should have someone good assist you/do it for you, even if it means hiring someone (depending on the size of your business), because getting the math wrong will mean the difference between success and bankruptcy, and this is even more true the further down the ladder you go in terms of profit margins.

On a side not, I've often thought it such a paradox that the people who need to be the best at numbers (the poor) are usually the worst.

Alexander Felice · Answer

also, as others have said: you're better off knowing how to use excel than how to do math!

Christine Sykes · Answer

Thanks everybody for putting this into perspective for me! I think that once I understand how analysis actually works, the numbers won't be an issue. And I will definitely use the calculators!

Cody Gentry · Answer

There are calculators out there that basically do all the work for you. As long as you can input the correct data into the right formulas, you should be just fine. If you decide that you don't want to use them and do it the old fashion way, you would perfectly fine with just understanding the common principles behind basic algebra.Investors/Agents aren't like accountants. We don't need to be extremely proficient in math to be successful, we just need to understand the formulas and the numbers that go in them :)

Christine Sykes · Answer

Wonderful, thanks! I figured it was something like that, but part of me was worried that you had to have number-crunching superpowers to do all the analysis. Thank goodness for technology!

What if you're bad at math?

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