The 2 Sides To Real Estate Investing…

There are two sides to every story and real estate investing is no different. It’s all about risk. Some say it’s risky; others say it isn’t. Just like everything else, it’s all in how you look at it.

Let’s look at the side who says it’s risky business.

Some people look at investment as a crap shoot. If they get into real estate, or any other kind of investing, they go about it as though they were trying to conjure up some sort of luck. They think that just by being in the game they’re doing everything that needs to be done.

Some of these people are lucky. But you have to remember, sometimes people who bet on the horses or the dogs are lucky. This type of investor looks at real estate investing in the same way?pick something at random and hope for the best.

If real estate investing were really done like that, there would be no such thing as a real estate mogul. You would see people who made a lot of money quickly from time to time, and those people would fade into the background like last week’s pop stars.

For people who approach real estate investment like that, it is very risky. In fact, they are almost guaranteed to lose a great deal of money.

There is another side to real estate investing. Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad book series, and Ken McElroy, one of his Rich Dad advisers, both say that there is another way. In order to make real estate pay off for you, you have to approach it in a methodical manner.

Sure, these guys have lost money in the past, and probably will in the future. Everyone makes mistakes. But the money they have made on real estate deals far outshines the little bit they have lost in the course of learning the business. That is a far cry from stumbling down the path of financial ruin because you assume it’s a crap shoot.

They suggest that you learn as much as you reasonably can before you buy your first property. That means learning to read financial statements, learning the basics of real estate law, learning the markets and learning how to pick out properties. (Actually, McElroy outlines a wonderful method for picking out properties in ?The ABCs of Real Estate Investing.?)

What you can’t learn on your own, you get a team to help you with.

You have to approach this in a step-by-step manner and not give in to the temptation to leap before you look. You know the saying: ?Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.? Don’t rush in to the exciting world of real estate investing, but don’t be afraid of it either. Simply learn the terrain as you would if you were going to go walk a foreign countryside for the first time. Learn what is poisonous and avoid it. With that kind of knowledge, you can do anything safely, including invest.

About the Author:

Alex Anderson is a Minneapolis Realtor Specializing In Minnesota Investment Property and Florida Investment Property.

The Psychology Of Real Estate Investing

In the 1980s, if you were going to go on a diet, magazines would tell you to ?think thin.? They never actually explained what that meant, but everyone knew they were supposed to do it. Adopt the psychology of the thin person, whatever that was. It follows that, in order to become rich, you should be able to accomplish that by adopting the psychology of the rich, right? Actually, it does. Specifically, you should adopt the mindset of the successful real estate investor.

Successful real estate investors are opportunists. They always have their antennae up and ready. They put themselves in the way of information. They ?live the life? of the real estate investor, so to speak. And because of all this, they notice things.

Ken McElroy, author of ?The ABCs of Real Estate Investing,? which is part of the Rich Dad series, says it’s all about patterns. If you look at enough properties, study enough areas, talk to enough people, he said, you will start to see these patterns. Then things will start to happen. You may start to seem lucky. And, McElroy says, it may be luck, but it is a sort of luck, that comes from being prepared.

Remember: ?Fortune favors the prepared mind.? Opportunity is all around us, but if we are blind to it, it will be as though it doesn’t exist. The prepared mind recognizes opportunity.

McElroy emphasizes over and over again that being successful in real estate is a process. It isn’t just something that happens one day, as in one day we’re suddenly successful. It is something that you do every day. Eventually things begin to happen for you.

Someone who is successful focuses on doing a little at a time, on learning this or that thing, or making this particular deal. It’s a ?walk before you can crawl? proposition.

For instance, McElroy says, if you have found a good deal, you can get funding for it because other people will want a piece of the action. It isn’t about negotiation skills necessarily, he said. Of course, those skills can get you an even better deal at times, but you shouldn’t fret over whether you are good at the negotiation table. Just look for good deals.

Although they are always evaluating risk, always aware of it, successful investors are not frightened away by it. They determine whether the risk seems reasonable. If the numbers add up, McElroy says, then it is a good deal. If it is a good deal, the savvy investor goes for it.

Simple.

People who don’t know how to properly evaluate risk may think everything is too risky. They assume, for instance, that a larger deal may be too risky for a beginner to deal with. They assume that because they think the investor is sinking a lot of personal cash into it when, in truth, a larger deal stands to make a larger sum for the participants. Therefore you may be able to get more backers for a deal like that. In the end, you may put up less personal money than you would have on a smaller deal.

Real estate investment is just like anything else you want to learn how to do. Well, for one thing, you have to learn how to do it. And you learn by doing. Get out there and look at properties. Visit cities as though you were intending to buy. Go online and read about areas. See what other people have to say about the real estate in a particular area. Get to know people. Before long, you will know enough to begin thinking about actually making a move. You don’t have to have a wad of cash in hand before you start playing the game. Just get out there and enjoy yourself. The rest will come.

About the Author:

Alex Anderson is a Minneapolis Realtor Specializing In Minnesota Investment Properties and Buying Investment Property