First Rental Property

Hi Everybody,

I hope you are all doing well.

Today I want to talk to you about your real estate network, and how powerful it truly can be.

When you are first starting out as a real estate investor, chances are that you have not established a solid network of like minded people.

The more time you spend involved with real estate investing, the more real estate investor meetings and investment groups you attend, the larger your network will become.

While you are attending all of these meetings, you are no doubt meeting a lot of people, who potentially will be able to help you down the road.

You are not going to stay in touch with all of the real estate investors that you meet along the way, rather, if you are able to make a handful of strong relationships with other investors, this in my belief is all you need at the end of the day.

Personally, I leverage from time to time on my network of fellow real estate investors. I have a small group of  real estate investors that I go to for advice whenever I do not know how to deal with an issue. (some of whom will be reading this post!)

The interesting observation I have made with this group is that, I consider most if not all of the people in the group to be smarter than  I am.  They are smarter than me when it comes to running a business, they have great instincts, and they are very smart entrepreneurs.

I feel no shame due to the fact that they are smarter than I am.  This is  because I know that whenever I need help with something and I go to one of these people for help, I am going to get very valuable feedback, which will help me to solve my problem.

As a new real estate investor just starting off, you want to establish a network of people that know more than you do, and who have more experience than you do investing in real estate.

Many novice investors make the mistake of establishing a network of fellow investors who have the same skill set as they do, or who have the same level of experience.

Although, you might be able to learn a thing or two from one another, when you are faced with a very difficult problem, chances are that no one in your network will be able to help you.

In summary, the greatest discovery that I have made about building an effective network of fellow real estate investors is to…

Surround yourself with a network of people that are smarter than you

It will take a while for you to realize the benefits of doing this.  For me, it took me over 2 years to realize how important and valuable the network was that I had established.

For example, today I was dealing with a challenging real estate investing issue.  As a result, I sent an e-mail out to a small group of fellow real estate investors, who have also become my friends.

Within a few hours, I recieved responses from them as to how I should deal with the issue that I was facing.

The advice that they provided me with, I am going to implement.  In addition, the advice that they provided will help me to effectively solve the current problem that I am facing.

The Power of your network is incredible.  Build it well, and take care of it.

To keep up to date with my blog, you can enter your e-mail address on the LEFT side of the blog.

To sign up for The First Rental Property Newsletter, you can enter your e-mail address on the RIGHT hand side of the blog.  In the newsletter, you will hear from experienced real estate investors as they describe their experience when they bought their first rental property.

Best Regards,

Neil Uttamsingh

Hi Everyone,

Today I am going to talk about, How to increase your chances of success as a real estate investor.

Sounds cool, does it not?!

In reality, increasing your chances of success as a real estate investor is quite simple.

Is that a bold statement for me to make?

Perhaps.

However, I can confidently make that statement as I have observed some very successful real estate investors over the past 5 years and have been able to learn from their mistakes. In addition, I have made some mistakes of my own that I have been able to learn from.

Rather that providing your with an extensive list on the “things that you can do in order to be more successful as a real estate investor”, I am going to discuss one topic.  This topic, again, may seem quite basic, but then again, everything is quite basic at the end of the day.

Here we go…

The number one way that I believe that you can increase your chances of success as a real estate investor is by…

Explaning to people what you do.

Some of you might be thinking at this point…”Neil, are you serious?!  Is that it?”

Well yes my dear real estate investors, that is it.

Here is how I have come to this conclusion.

1) The most successful real estate investors explain to other people very well what it is that they do.

Over the past five plus years as a real estate investor, I have met and been associated with probably hundreds of real estate investors.  Some of the most successful, in terms of numbers of properties purchased, can explain clearly to people what it is that they do.

Many people have coined this as the ‘Elevator Speech’, which is esentially explaining to people in a few short sentences what it is that you do.

For example, my short elevator speech would be,

“Hi my name is Neil.  I am a professional real estate investor.  I purchase positive cash flow condo townhouses on the ‘Mountain’ in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada with joint venture partners.”

I don’t want to talk about the elevator speech here because I have noticed that the elevator speech is what trips up a lot of real estate investors who are just starting out.

These new investors worry so much about the perfect words to say when someone asks them about what they do.

I have witnessed and spoken to a number of real estate investors that stress out so much about this… the dreaded elevator speech.

Here is where I want to simplify things.

I am not an anti-elevator speech guy by any means.  However, what I do believe is important, especially for the new real estate investors is to…

CLEARLY explain to others what it is that you do.

Why is it important to CLEARLY explain to others what is is that you do?

If you are an experienced real estate investor reading this, you know that 99% of the time when you tell someone that you are a real estate investor, they think that you are a Realtor.

This is an understandable assumption on the part of the person that you are speaking to.  They have assumed that you a Realtor because you have not explained to them clearly what it is that you do.  (I know because I have been guilty of this many times!)

Sure at the beginning, they may ask you…”You are a real estate investor?  Does that mean that you are a Realtor?  This is your cue to jump in there and explain to them clearly the difference between a real estate investor and a realtor, and specifically what it is that you do.

Personally, I was not that good at explaining what I did when I first started investing.  I would give people a brief explanation and expect them to fully understand what it is that I did.

After I was getting so many confused looks when I told people what I did, I began to realize that I was not CLEARLY explaining myself.

This experience has served as a great lesson for me.  If there is one piece of advice that I can give those of you just starting out as a real estate investor, it is this…

Be very good at explaining to others what it is that you do.  Being good at this will open up doors for you down the road.

The more people that know what you are doing means, the more people who may one day wish to participate with you in some capacity with your real estate investing.

To keep up to date with my blog, you can enter your e-mail address on the LEFT side of the blog.

To sign up for The First Rental Property Newsletter, you can enter your name and e-mail address on the RIGHT hand side of the blog.  In this newsletter, you will be able to read about and hear from experienced real estate investors and their experience when they purchased their first rental property.

Best Regards,

Neil.