Now is a great time to invest in real estate. Every day new investors are entering the business with great success. This success, however, does not come easy. Like any other business real estate is full of ups and downs. The odds are you will not be flooded with deals your first month in the business. There will probably be times when you question what you are doing and why you are doing it. It is during these times that you need to rely on a positive mindset. The right attitude and frame of mind can change everything. Instead of having a defeatist attitude you can look on the bright side of things. Eventually this leads to increased contacts which will eventually lead to more deals. You can change your business with the right mindset. Here are five thoughts and attitudes you need to avoid:
- Procrastination. One of the perks of real estate investing is that you can make your own schedule and work when you please. As much of a positive as this is it can also be a negative with the wrong personality. There is nobody telling you what to do and when to do it. If you are not careful you will end up constantly pushing things off until you feel like doing them. Even worse you will end up not doing them at all. As the old expression goes you should not put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There is never a right time to network or a right time to start a marketing campaign. Whether you are right or wrong you need to take action. Even if you fail at least you know where you stand and will avoid the same mistake in the future.
- Defeat. Every offer you make will not get accepted. There will be issues on almost every rehab you are part of. The odds are that you will face more failure than success as you are finding your way in the business. You will get humbled and knocked down but the question is will you get back up. The real estate business is very much like baseball in that you will fail much more than you will succeed. There will be times when you lose a deal that you worked on for months. This takes the wind out of your sails. Many investors will throw their hands up and complain about all the bad things that are happening with their business. They stop pursing new deals for weeks and sulk at every new networking opportunity. When you get knocked off your horse you need to get right back on it. The real estate business doesn’t stop just because you lost a deal or your marketing campaign wasn’t as successful as you would have liked. The longer you are in the business for you will find that deals often go to those investors who are the most resilient.
- Accept Failure. You can’t stop pursuing deals just because you had a few setbacks. Some of the most successful investors have had much bigger failures than you. As long as these failures do not wipe your business out you can get up and move on. The most important thing with failure is that you learn from it. As obvious as it sounds you never want to make the same mistake twice. You are going to make plenty of mistakes but if you learn from them your business can grow. There are times when you will need to step out of your comfort zone to find or close deals. You hear it all the time all across reality TV for the need to not play things safe. Like anything else you do the first couple of times it will be uncomfortable. Eventually you will look back and ask yourself why you waited so long to pursue a niche or invest in a different way. If you let fear of taking action cripple you it will. Just because you make a mistake doesn’t mean your business is ruined. Don’t let a failure define you and your business.
- Stubborn. How you invest in real estate today may be completely different six months from now. Think back to where your business was one year ago and where it is today. The odds are that you have made at least one significant change that you didn’t see coming. With every property, every niche and every strategy you need to avoid being set in your ways. There is a difference between having the power of your convictions and just being downright stubborn. You may have been watching a property for months but it doesn’t mean you have to overpay for it. The more flexible you are the easier it is to adapt to any market. Where investors usually get themselves in trouble is by sticking to a niche for too long rather than adjusting to their market. Investing in mobile homes or condos may have been great a few months ago but that doesn’t mean it will stay that way forever. You don’t need to jump from niche to niche and idea to idea but you should at least consider new opportunities.
How you think about the business is almost as import as the actions you take. Every day you should take a few minutes to think about keeping the right frame of mind. Your mindset can change the direction of your business.
