You Can’t Build a Business on Someone Else’s Skill
When I first got into real estate investing, I was intimidated by cash buyers.
If you’ve been in this business for any amount of time, you probably know the feeling.
They seemed like they had it all figured out. They had money, bought houses regularly, closed quickly, and carried themselves with a level of confidence that made me wonder if I’d ever get there.
I remember thinking, “If I could just become a cash buyer someday, then I’d really be in business.”
As I started doing more deals, though, something began to change.
The more cash buyers I met, the more I realized that many of them weren’t necessarily great at finding deals.
Many were really good at raising capital or using other people’s money. They bought listed properties, purchased deals from wholesalers, bid at auctions, and worked with agents who brought them opportunities.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. They’re successful for a reason.
But I also realized something I hadn’t seen when I was new.
Many of them were dependent on someone else to bring them opportunities.
That was a lightbulb moment for me.
Instead of focusing on becoming the person with the money, I became obsessed with becoming the person who could consistently create opportunities. Learning how to acquire off-market properties became my focus.
That one decision changed everything.
Fast forward ten years.
Some of those same cash buyers who once intimidated me still call asking if I have wholesale deals available.
It always makes me smile.
Not because I think I’m better than they are. I don’t.
It makes me smile because I remember the pedestal I put them on when I first started.
Back then, I thought they had something I didn’t.
Today, I rarely wholesale deals because, in many cases, they simply don’t make sense for our business. We can often create more value by wholetailing, renovating, or holding them as rentals.
Looking back, our business has grown to many times the size of a lot of the cash buyers who once seemed so much bigger and more successful than I was. It wasn’t because we eventually had more money.
It was because we spent years getting really good at finding our own opportunities instead of waiting for someone else to hand them to us.
Years ago, Shelly and I attended a one-day mastermind before joining a year-long coaching program.
During one of the sessions, our mentor looked at us and said something I’ll never forget.
“You’ve developed a skill set that will never allow you to be broke again.”
At first, I thought he was talking about real estate.
Looking back, I don’t think he was.
He was talking about acquisitions.
He was talking about learning how to consistently find opportunities that other people overlook.
That’s a skill you carry with you no matter what the market is doing.
If everything we owned disappeared tomorrow, and someone dropped Shelly and me into a city we’d never been to before, I’m confident we’d build it back.
Not because we’d have money.
Not because we’d have a buyers list.
Not because we’d know anyone.
We’d build it back because we’d still know how to find opportunities.
That’s the part of this business that can never be taken away.
Markets change.
Interest rates change.
Exit strategies change.
We’ve wholesaled houses, wholetailed houses, renovated houses, and kept rentals. We’ll probably continue adapting as the market changes. But every one of those strategies starts with the same skill.
Finding great off-market opportunities.
Looking back over the last decade, that’s the skill I’m most grateful I invested the time to learn.
It didn’t just change my real estate business.
It changed the way I think about business altogether.
I’m curious…
When you look back at your investing journey, what’s one skill you’ve developed that continues to create value no matter what the market is doing?