Real Estate Advice

Just about everyone has dreams for themselves. The heartbreaking fact is that many who set their goals will never reach them. Most often, it has nothing to do with the individual’s potential, nor their level of ambition. People fail by now putting that ambition into action. Therefore, they remain in a stagnant financially. If you don’t want to be one of those people that never reach their financial potential, there are some simple (yet revolutionary) steps you can use to help you achieve your goals after you set them.

Setting goals is worthless if you don’t take the action

Setting goals is a complete waste of time if you aren’t going to take the action you need to take in order to reach them. Really, don’t waste your ink. Too many people deplete their time thinking up ideas (many of which are very, very good), but don’t take action on achieving them. Don’t let this be you! Even if you’re very good at what you do, talent will never surpass persistence in terms of succeeding. Some of the most talented people are poor. The wealthy ones are the ones that don’t stop.

They continue to take action, despite whatever is going on in their life, or how hopeless a situation may appear. It’s the people that give up too soon that don’t get anywhere in life. You’ve got to be persistent in taking the action to achieve your goals.

This information will do wonders to help you, no matter what profession you’re in. If you put the following practices place, you’re sure to succeed. That being said, the only way to reach your goals is by increasing productivity. There are no shortcuts to productivity, you either make a decision to be productive and take action, or you don’t. Being productive is the only way you’ll reach your goals financially in real estate, and in life.

Take Responsibility!

By far, the best thing you can do for yourself is to take responsibility. Too many people blame others for their current states. Whether or not someone else is to blame is completely irrelevant. Perhaps the people in your life are to blame. The point is that who’s to blame makes no difference. What matters is what you do about it now. Wherever you are right now in life financially is of your own making. That can be a hard pillow to swallow.

It’s not fun to admit that, but it is the first step to succeeding in real estate. Do not blame others or your circumstances as to why you aren’t where you want to be, or could have been by now. Perhaps you weren’t able to get a great education. Maybe you don’t have a lot of money so you can’t invest in the great real estate deals you’d otherwise be able to. Many people love to rationalize to themselves that the condition of the real estate market itself is to blame for their lack of success.

You’re going to need to take some accountability if you want to succeed. Maybe you are going through some hard personal circumstances, or are struggling financially. Remember this: you’ll never gain success as a real estate investor if you don’t accept that your current state is of your own making. When you realize you are to blame, only then can you make progress at growth. Don’t be one of the people that walk around complaining about how tough real estate is, naming all the reasons that you’re unsuccessful.

Typically, unsuccessful real estate investors like to blame other people. Then they start blaming situations. They’ll do everything they can to avoid taking responsibility. Why is this? Some truly believe that they have nothing to do with their lack of success. Most other unsuccessful investors know deep down in their hearts that they aren’t putting into it what they should. They complain to others because it makes them feel better momentarily; it makes them feel like less of a failure. But, when they go to bed at night, they know that they haven’t done everything in their power to master the field.

Positive thinking breeds positive results

Once you’ve fully accepted that you are where you are because of you, and stop blaming others, you’ll need to do a 180 degree change on your perspectives and outlook. This is a little tip called opportunity perspective. Instead of thinking about how something might be “too hard,” look at those challenges as opportunities. When you adjust your perspective and look at challenging situations as an opportunity to grow, you’ll notice your life changing in front of your eyes.

Here’s a classic example. Many real estate investors talk about how they are frequently being outbid due to the real estate market being so hot. Obviously, when you’re selling homes, there are situations where there are multiple offers. Now, do you consider that a challenge, or an opportunity? For the negative thinker, this would be a challenge. They would think that they’ll never get what they can for the property since there are so many others being sold that are similar, or at the same price. The opportunity thinker will realize that they have a great property, and tells themselves that it will sell at or above what people are telling him. Whether or not that’s true isn’t the point.

Squawkers 

The point is your perspective! Perhaps the deal you invested in really may not have been the best one. You’ve got to think otherwise. Never have a negative outlook in life, or in business. Having a negative outlook is not going to do you any favors. One of the reasons is that nobody’s going to want to be around you. Your support system is going to diminish because people don’t want to listen to you squawking anymore about all of your problems, and why they aren’t your fault. Positive people like to be around other positive people. Not Negative Nancy’s. Why? Because they know that sitting around talking about issues is ineffective; instead, they focus on how to solve those issues or current poor circumstances. They are not sitting around the campfire spouting around their woes.

Many people encounter an extremely negative person, and walk away thinking, “Gosh, that was awful.” Yet they don’t realize that they do the exact same thing. Smart people when they walk away think about how they do the same thing, and make an effort to change their outlook. Don’t be a squawker.

Learn from other peoples errors and successes

A great outlook to take on is how can your current problems be an opportunity? As mentioned earlier, realtors often blame the market when they aren’t getting any buyers or sellers. Yet, when you look around, plenty of agents and investors are not only making money, but some serious money. Regardless of where you live, there are real estate opportunities everywhere. The people in real estate who are making the big bucks are the ones that take every problem they encounter and wonder how they can use it to their advantage.

Look at the people that are doing well, and ask yourself what they’re doing differently than you are. Sometimes it’s not what you aren’t doing that isn’t working, it’s what you are doing. There are no questions that real estate makes money. If you aren’t, you’re doing something wrong. If you feel defensive reading that, it means you’ve got some changing to do. Now is the time to make the changes. Really study and analyze what the successful ones are doing. What are their strategies? What worked and didn’t work for them? You can learn a lot just by looking up successful investors past sales and current listings. What sold quickly? What didn’t, or took a long time?

Follow through!

Successful people follow through with their ideas and plans. Unsuccessful people talk about them endlessly, but never implement them. You’ll never be successful in real estate if you talk about all of the potential deals, and research them, but never put any action into making the deal a reality. Think about how many tycoons there are that didn’t get a college degree. And then all of the people that went, and got a masters, then a phd. Education is undoubtedly essential to being successful, but knowledge can only take you so far.

You have to take risks if you want to get anywhere. Don’t shy away from a situation because there’s a potential pitfall. The more action you take the more you’re going to learn. The more you learn the more distinctions you’ll make to make better decisions in the future.

So many people are scared to take action so they calculate and plan and then they see something that may not work perfect so they pull back out of fear. You MUST take action. Think of all the successful people that didn’t even go to college. How did they do it? They had positive mindsets and turned their big dreams and ideas into a reality.

Be more afraid to do nothing rather than doing something

Train yourself to be more afraid of inaction than action. The fact of the matter is that the only place that inaction will get you is broke. Half-action may bring a comfortable living. Massive action can make you very wealthy. Don’t be afraid of looking stupid. What makes you look dumb isn’t trying and failing, its doing nothing. Staying stagnant will not help you prosper. If you see a potentially lucrative opportunity, jump in.

You’ve got to get out of your comfort zone! Once you do so, you’ll be shocked at the results. It’s never a bad idea to utilize a mentor. Just about everyone involved real estate had a mentor in some form or fashion. Successful investors are often happy to share what they’ve learned, as someone did the same for them at one point. You’ve got to make necessary changes. Reading these types of articles is great, but only if you do what they say.

And don’t miss opportunities that you’re sure to miss if you walk around with the “woe is me” attitude. Nobody wants to hear about it. People are fine listening if they know that you’re working really hard and still not doing well. People know the difference between when somebody is venting, and when they are complaining and making excuses. If you’re lucky, you have a good friend who will actually call you out on it. But more often than not, they won’t. They’ll just wait for the minute that you finally stop, and make up a polite excuse to get off the phone. Not taking action is the absolute worst mistake you can make.

Be your own biggest advocate

Recognize that you are going to fail at times. Also, there are going to be times where you are the only one in your corner. Times where you have nobody there to cheer you on except yourself. Become your own biggest cheerleader. Most people are concerned with their own lives. And honestly, most people get jealous when you start doing well. They will encourage you, and listen to your problems.

But the minute that you change your outlook, and start to become successful, you’ll notice that they don’t answer the phone quite as much. It can take a while to adopt a new perspective and completely change your thinking, and at times you will move backward. When this happens, t is imperative that you don’t beat yourself up. Be your own cheerleader!

If you screw up, think about how you can either fix it, or do better. Wasting time harping on the mistake itself and the negative outcome does nothing but waste your time. And for that matter, all of the people around you’s time. You want to be the person that when people walk away, they say “What a nice guy.” and thoroughly enjoyed conversing with you. You do not want to be the person that someone sees in a grocery store and quickly goes down another aisle because they don’t want to listen to you. Be better! Adopt a positive outlook, and take action.