All Forum Posts by: Peter Vekselman

All it takes one eviction to destroy most people's metric of success. Replacing a roof wipes away years of gains if these issues are not factored when buying. Most people's definition of cash flow is also flawed. So, yeah being truly successful in real estate is no common just as it is not in stock markets, bitcoins, or anything else. Otherwise, country would be full of millionaires.

Another issue is survivorship bias. One will see thousands of "how I made X money in real estate" videos but does not see much "how I lost" videos, which makes an illusion among new investors. 

That said, with a good education and training, one can achieve success. And no, I do not mean paying thousands to self-proclaimed gurus, who just want to "help" other investors. Using your local library is a great place to learn more and make less mistakes. I personally avoided many mistakes using the knowledge I got from the books. It is the only place where you get tons of gain for free (well, almost free:))

@Peter Vekselman

I would agree it’s very low. But it has nothing to do with the investment vehicle and everything to do with the guru type approach. People wake up one morning, decide to be a real estate investor. They quit their job and go full time. No income , no experience, no chance of success. All of the “successful investors” I know ( yes I know several) started buying real estate to supplement their retirement. Their goal wasn’t to buy a private jet and Mcmansion in 2 years. They bought decent deals , self managed , and did most of the maintenance themselves. I think the newbies are shocked with how slow and boring real estate is, as well as how much work it takes.

Real estate investing is the best thing I did for my family. We started 15 years ago. We only purchased in our backyard. We did all of our maintenance for 10 years. We self manage to this day. We have No investors, We only used our money that we saved from our W2s. I was a auto repair technician, my wife was a medical coder. This is all wrong according to the gurus. We needed to chase the fast markets , raise millions of dollars, and never ever grab a paint brush or hammer. And OMG, repair a toilet ??! Only peasants fix toilets ! We gave up every weekend for 10 years and even worked until midnight turning units while we had our W2. Until this day , we have never sold a single property.

15 years later my wife and I live off of our rental

Portfolio. We still work everyday day on our rental business. Only now are we looking to hire a full time office person, and full time maintenance person. My wife and I easily handled the maintenance, renovations, and management until our portfolio grew north of 100 units. As our portfolio is closing in on 200 units, We could still do most things ourselves but at this point it is hectic, and I value our time more than the savings. So that’s why we are looking to replace ourselves in the business.

How does this answer your question. I think real estate is the best , safest tool to build wealth when used wisely. Buy in an area that you know well. Buy and HOLD for the long term. Don’t go into it with 100% financing. Do the work , only use the proceeds to grow your business for 10 years !! Try and buy a small multi 5-10 units every other year or so. When you finally look up after 10 years of grinding , and sacrificing, You will be shocked as to the wealth and cashflow your portfolio will produce. After seeing our life 15 years later , I would absolutely do it all over again.

Cheers. Off to hop in my “Lambo” and do some renovations. “ my lambo is my Ford Transit HD dually” . Love that thing!!

@Peter Vekselman

I think the success rate has a lot to do with the time frame you are measuring against and the strategy you are using. For example, fix and slippers are greatly affected by shifting interest rates and are often targeting short term profits per project so success rate is likely lower due to this short time window. On the opposite side, a buy and hold strategy is more likely to have a higher success rate since the target time window is much larger and due to appreciation, real estate and rent prices have historically gone up consistently. If you buy a property, and hold it for ten years while keeping it consistently rented, the success rate of that project is likely to be high. Most likely, if you are in a financial position to acquire investment properties; you likely are already enjoying an above average lifestyle; so the additional cash flow from real estate investing is likely just going to add onto that. I believe that both time frame and financial education is the key to achieve success in real estate. The more of both you have, the higher the success rate. 

I would guess fairly low too. The majority of people know real estate investing is a vehicle for wealth but most are afraid to take the leap. Those who do usually don't reach Brandon Turner level but I think success isn't black/white enough to measure across the board. Some people may buy an investment property just to be able to subsidize their parent's living expenses, take a great vacation every year, or retire early. Success is different to everyone. 

Whats a good way to get into real estate if you got some spare change saved up i havent got a degree no qualifications but am willing to go that extra mile

 IMO it's because so many read books, watch tapes and think they are ready, when books and tapes are not reality So many try and go it alone and get crushed. All they need to do is connect with those doing deals and learn from them its not rocket science.  I knew zero 10 years or so ago. Well, my 1st month I flipped a contract for 19k, well 500, yes about 500 deals later nothing I have not done. All while never reading one book on RE. So many make it more complicated, it's just numbers. Not really sure about the %. However, all my colleagues are hugely successful. 

All the best 

As to real estate investing, I would say it was less than 5%, based strictly on consistent action alone.

I say consistent action, because everyone took action in some way, by either purchasing the course, watching the YouTube vids, going to the seminars, even the next stages of setting up the LLC, business cards, etc…

The key is consistent.  

There’s an old saying, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Well that is true, but there’s more to the story.

A journey of a thousand miles does indeed begin with a single step, but if you don’t take the next step and the next, and the next, you will never get to your destination.

It’s the same thing with this business.  Most people think that their initial step will have enough momentum to get them to the finish line.  However, they must maintain action day by day or they will never get to their destination.

The other part that I believe is, this is one business that should not be attempted alone.

In the old days, most businesses were learned by a relationship between tradesman and apprentice.  This should be no different.

Even the realtor process requires a salesperson(apprentice) to fulfill 2 years under a broker(trademan) before they can venture out on their own.

I believe this would reduce quite a bit of trial and error and failure in general if this process was truly available to the investor community.

I am a huge advocate for a mentor/mentee relationships.