Do you love what you do?

Question

We all know that r/e can be very profitable, but how many of you actually love what you do?

Dawn Anastasi · Answer

I really do enjoy real estate.  I think I enjoy about 95% of it and maybe 5% of it I don't enjoy.  I think even if you're married, there might be 5% of the time you don't enjoy your spouse.  :)

Jon Holdman · Answer

No.  There are a lot of things I love doing.  Few of them could produce any income, none would produce much.  Real estate is an investment for me, one of several.   Some parts of it I like, some are a pain.  It's hard to "love" dealing with a tenant who disappears owning you rent.  Or defaulting borrowers.  Or a lot of other things.

Same in my day job.  There's a lot about it I enjoy.  But there are parts of its that get tiresome.

Even truly fun things can have tedious aspects.  Going on vacation may be fun, but getting through airport sure isn't.

In Ignore Everybody and 39 other keys to creativity 2009 hardback the author talks about "sex and money".  By that he means we do somethings we really enjoy, but that don't earn us anything.  That's the "sex" part.  And other things we do because they produce "money".  You do the "money" stuff to be able to do the "sex" stuff.  Day jobs and real estate investing both fall into the "money" category.

Account Closed · Answer

J Scott, you nailed it for me:
" one of the things I do like about real estate specifically, is that there's so much to know/learn that I always have the option to try something new or put another twist on what I'm already doing. Many businesses don't have that little benefit."

I'm a federal employee and being furloughed so now I can truly say that real estate investing is truly my friend.

Jeff S. · Answer

Owning RE is one of those things that makes time your friend. I like it because you have a chance to wear many different hats which is what is hard for those that come from organizations where you work a small piece. I like it because you can have a small involvement (like me) or grow into something large and complicated. I really like it now because being retired I can dabble w/o the stress of a job. I do love that.

Kyia M. · Answer

Thank you all for these awesome responses!

Pat L. · Answer

My schtick was Drive Control Automation...loved it but the politics etc drove me crazy.
I called it quits @ 49 only because we had accumulated a good stable of quality properties.
I love RE & the constant challenges. Furthermore, if I make a mistake I only have myself to answer to...... unless my wife also catches it :)

& NOW the only annual performance review I need to endure is that of our CPA.

Mark Ferguson · Answer

Yes, I love it.  It is my day job and I do a lot of different things in Real Estate. 
I am a Realtor and specialize in listing REO and HUD properties.  I do fix and flips with my father.   I do BPOs for banks.  I buy long term rental properties as investments.  I write a blog on long term investments.

My personality type requires me to be doing a lot of different things and I am not good at routines. I love having a lot of different things going on at once and could not stand a desk job doing the same things over and over.

There are lots of parts of Real Estate I don't enjoy, but I let my staff do those tasks and I work on the things I like doing.

Dawn Anastasi · Answer

Must be something about the IT field -- I work with accounting software for a living.  The debits and credits are still the same, but the software that processes it changes, as well as everything that interacts with it -- ecommerce, shipping, EDI, financial reporting, CRM, etc.

J Scott · Answer

I was in that field for a long and that's the reason I often really miss it.  There's a lot to be said for spending your career doing something you may never truly master (if only because the field is changing faster than you can learn it all)...

Jon Holdman · Answer

Only two rentals.  Rentals are only a small slice of RE investing, and that's only a slice of all my investments.  And, actually, my current tenants aren't any trouble at all.  I do offer a small discount, about 2%, if rent gets deposited on the 1st.  That's gone a long ways to improving on-time payment and reduced my stress over that.  I did acknowledge it was a weird thing :-).

My day job (computer SW/HW engineering) has a lot of what J  Scott mentions - opportunities to learn and do new things.

Do you love what you do?

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