First Rental Property

The world’s richest man doesn’t care about making money.  He thinks it’s crazy if you keep on buying things.

Carlos Slim is a telecommunications tycoon that was ranked by Forbes as the world’s richest man in 2010.

He firmly believes that electronic communications is now the nervous system of society.

In an interview with CNN‘s Larry King, Carlos opened up about money, life, business and family.

Carlos shared some incredible insights.  These great insights should be studied carefully by new real estate investors.

Here is what you ought to know about The World’s Riches Man

1. Family is the most important thing to him.
2. His happiness does not come from buying things.
3. He thinks that someone is “crazy” and that they “have a problem” if they “keep on buying things.”
4. The more that you buy, the more that you will want.  Materials things don’t matter.
5. Family should not be looked at as an obstacle.  Rather, you should turn to family for support.

Understanding Carlos’ point of view is very important for new real estate investors.  If you completely understand and practice what Carlos preaches, you will have a much more fulfilling real estate investing career.  Buying rental property should never be about making money hand over fist…which leads me to my next point…

1) Never buy rental properties solely for monetary gain

Your long term happiness as a real estate investor has more to do with than just making money.  Don’t get me wrong…  There is absolutely nothing wrong with monetary gain.  However,  you have to have other, more dominant motivations, fueling your desire to invest.  If you just invest to make money, you probably will not fully enjoy the experience of being a real estate investor.  Any super successful real estate investor, like Donald Trump will be the first to tell you that you have to do what you love.

2)  Your family can help you become a better real estate investor

View your family in a positive light.  Gain strength from them. Work as a team, not against each other.  Look to them for support during tough times.  This is what Carlos believed, and continues to believe today.  Many real estate investors, including myself got to where they are today because of the support of their family.

Best Regards,

Neil Uttamsingh

PS: Learn from the most successful people in the world, and learn how to become a real estate investor simply by subscribing to my blog.    

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are doing well.

Before I dive into today’s blog post, I would like to thank fellow Canadian Real Estate Investor and Blogger Chris Davies.  I was chatting with Chris this week, and he gave me some great tips as to how I can improve my blog.  One of the blogs that he recommended to me that I am going to be leveraging in order to improve my blog is SEOmoz.  The SEOmoz blog has nothing to do with real estate investing, however, everything to do with Search Engine Optimization — which is something that I am going to be learning more about and integrating with First Rental Property.  Thanks again Chris!

Now for today’s blog post…

Today’s post was inspired by fellow Canadian Real Estate Investors and Bloggers Julie Broad and Dave Peniuk of Rev N You.

In Julie and Dave’s recent Rev N You Newsletter, they talked about figuring out your ‘why’ when you are buying rental property.

Over the past couple of years, they have met a number of real estate investors who have purchased 30 or more properties in a very short period of time.

Despite these large portfolios that these investors have accumulated in a very short period of time, they are not satisfied.  They are not satisfied because they never took the time to figure out WHY they were investing in the first place.

When I read this in Julie and Dave’s Newsletter, I knew exactly what they were talking about, because I see this happening as well with real estate investors that I know, or hear about.

It has been my observation that some real estate investors become obsessed with buying as many properties that they can.  Some investors ‘explode’ onto the real estate investing scene and buy a lot of properties REALLY fast.  Before the dust has settled, some find that they are in a situation in which they despise….very unhappy, and holding a large portfolio of rental properties.

For instance, they now have a lot of additional stress with the management of these properties and with dealing with all of their tenants.

Why it pays to be self aware…

Most Real Estate Investors just like most of the general population are not overly self aware.  Due to this lack of self awareness, people do things without really thinking why they are doing it.

Fortunately, I have always had a high degree of self awareness.  This has helped to guide me through my real estate investing career.  If and when I begin to question what I am doing, I have to stop and ask myself the reason why I am investing in real estate.

As a new real estate investor, being self aware is crucially important.  Generally speaking, the more self aware you are, the less stress you will cause yourself down the road.

Here is an example of what I mean…

Some new real estate estate investors think investing is all about money, and all about how many properties you can buy and how fast.

Fortunately, I came to realize early in my real estate investing career that it is not all about that.

This past year, I  had to turn down an individual who wanted to joint venture with me.  He was a guy with access to a large amount of capital and with experience in real estate.

When he first asked to joint venture with me, I struggled slightly with the decision making process, as all I saw were ‘dollar signs’, as I did not want to turn down this guy’s money.

Being the extremely self aware individual that I am, it did not take me long to figure out that I had to listen to my gut and not joint venture with this guy.

He was someone that did not have the same core values as myself.  He viewed life and business much differently than I did.  His time horizon for investing did not match up with mine.  Due to all these factors, my decision to turn him down was very easy.

Having only been investing in real estate for a little over 5 years now, I know well enough never to venture with someone who does not share the same core values that I do.  This in my mind is a recipe for disaster.

Unfortunately, there are so many investors who do not realize this and jump into partnerships with anyone, just because that other person has money to invest.  They get blinded by the dollar signs, and more often than not, are left cleaning up a mess and/or are completely miserable.

What I have learned by observing others…

I have been fortunate to learn a lot by watching what other investors do.

What I have learned is that in this point in my real estate investing career, I would only joint venture with family members (people that I am related to) or with people who have core values that match up closely with mine. (this could be close friends, friends or acquaintances — however, there has to be an alignment of core values)

Due to this decision on my part, it may take me longer to build my real estate portfolio, however, I will be much happier and will not be adding any unnecessary stress to my life by partnering with people just because they have money to invest.

So how many rental properties do you need to retire rich?

There is no right or wrong answer to this question.

This all comes down to your own personal goals.

As you can see from my example, I am choosing to grow my portfolio more organically…

It is perfectly okay to grow your portfolio in this manner.

If you are a new real estate investor, you may only need one rental property to meet your real estate investing goals.

Let’s say for example, you chose to purchase 3 properties.   Depending on your individual circumstance, there is no reason why you cannot do this on you own.  For some it may take a number of years to acquire 3 properties by yourself.  Whereas with others, it may only take a few months in order to achieve this.

At the end of the day it is important to remember:

• There is no ‘secret’ number of properties required to retire rich.
• It is completely fine to grow your portfolio organically (by yourself)
• If you do joint venture with someone, make sure that you are not doing it just for the money, and that your partner and yourself are well suited for one another.

Best Regards,

Neil Uttamsingh

PS: To keep up to date with my blog, enter your email address on the LEFT hand side of the blog.  To receive The First Rental Property Newsletter, enter your e-mail address on the RIGHT hand side of the blog.  In The First Rental Property Newsletter, experienced real estate investors will be sharing how they purchased their first rental property.  They will also share with you some ‘tips’ and ‘tricks’ as to how to buy rental properties.

Do you have someone in your life that discourages you?

Are you ever really excited about an idea that you have, but then someone close to you convinces you otherwise?

Perhaps they convince you that the idea you have is not good, or perhaps they convince you that YOU are no good.

I like to call these people that discourage others, Dream Stealers.

Dream Stealers are everywhere and they are constantly trying to shatter the confidence of people close to them.

Dream Stealers are people who very readily, without solicitation offer their opinion. It is important to note that their opinion is always negative.

For instance, let’s look at the following example of a Dream Stealer in action.

You are tired of your current job and you are looking at making a job change. You have found a new job that you are really excited about. You are a bit nervous about applying for the new job, however, you know that the change will be good for you, and that you will really like the new role.

A Dream Stealer is someone that will put doubts into your mind. They will say such things as:

• “You are not going to like the job.”
• “The job is too hard.”
• “There are more qualified people than you applying for the job. Don’t apply, it is a waste of time.”
• “You are not smart enough for this new job.”
• “If you take this new job and end up not liking it, you can never go back to your previous job.”

Dream Stealers can be close family members, spouses, friends, or co-workers.

I have noticed that there are 2 types of Dream Stealers. They are:

1) The Unintentional Dream Stealer

The Unintentional Dream Stealer is an individual who will discourage someone. They will provide their negative opinions to the person that they are close to. The unique feature of The Unintentional Dream Stealer is that they don’t even realize that they are discouraging the other person. The Unintentional Dream Stealer provides so many negative opinions to the other person, however, they don’t perceive this information as being negative at all. The Unintentional Dream stealer truly does not mean any harm to the other person. However, they don’t realize that they are indeed harming the other person with all of their negative opinions.
This type of Dream Stealer is more common then the next type of Dream Stealer we are going to discuss. The other type of Dream Stealer is the Intentional Dream Stealer.

2) The Intentional Dream Stealer

These people really have issues. They make it a point to go out and discourage other people intentionally. They do not want to see this other person succeed, so they feed them with a lot of negative thoughts in the hope that they will become discouraged and take no action at the end of the day. I have noticed a common trait with these types of Dream Stealers. They often lack self-confidence. I have also noticed that Intentional Dream Stealers often want to control situations, and as such they prey upon people with less self confidence than themselves. Their ultimate goal is that they will discourage someone completely from taking any action at all.

So how does this relate to real estate investment, and rental properties?

It relates in a major way.

Both Unintentional and Intentional Dream Stealers influence the decisions of real estate investors on a daily basis.

Surely, we all can think of at least one person that we know that is an Unintentional Dream Stealer. Again, this type of Dream Stealer does not mean any harm to the other person, as they don’t realize that their negative feedback, is actually negative.

I have seen more than one real estate investor influenced into changing their decisions due to the influence of an Unintentional Dream Stealer.

Some things that an Unintentional Dream Stealer could say to a real estate investor are:

• “Are you sure you know what you are doing?”
• “Buying anther property, could make us go bankrupt!”
• “You don’t know enough about real estate market.”
• “You are not a good property manager.”

Hopefully, not many of you know an Intentional Dream Stealer. If you do know of one, you know that they are always out to discourage you, put you down, and they like to shatter your confidence.

I have seen real estate investors be completely discouraged after speaking with an Intentional Dream Stealer. Intentional Dream Stealer will say things like this:

• “You are a terrible real estate investor.”
• “You have lost so much money investing in real estate, how much more are you going to lose on this new rental property?”
• “You are not cut out to invest in real estate.”

We all know of and probably have Dream Stealer in our lives. It is important to recognize that someone is a Dream Stealer. Once you recognize who in your life is the Dream Stealer, you will be able to make the necessary adjustments in order to block our their negative opinions.  How do you block out their negative opinions?  Simple.  Don’t listen to them.

Easier said than done, I know!