Are you ready for.., the Perfect Storm???

Life is all about change.  Whether it’s the traffic patterns on our way to work, the kids favorite meal, one’s ability to excell in the World of Real Estate Investing, or life itself.   Life is life -right?

It occured to me the other day when a friend I know said… “Should I change who I am???”

Hmmm. I cannot answer that for anyone definitively due to ones individual issues (as you could understand)…. BUT, what I can say if one’s not happy with the results thier achieving then perhaps that’s a hint that change is in order.  Most of us resist change -it’s natural, and it’s uncomfortable.

If you know me, you know I say “Pain creates Change“.   Really -It does at least for me.   Pain causes me to pause.  Reflect on the issues.  Think about those friends or whom I respect and what constructive critisim they’ve given me.  Often I find the answer’s to positive results by stopping my ‘same ol’, same ol’ patterns, shutting up, and actually taking the advice of others…..

One of my greatest transformations in my World of Real Estate Investing was back in 2002-03′.   I still had a full time job and had @59 rental properties with a property manager.  My goal was to continue adding rental units, improving cash flow, with the goal of leaving the ’9-to-5′.    Sounds familiar?

Seemed possible right?  I mean here we were at the beginning of one of the largest ramp up’s in the economy (after 9-11) with all the economic winds pushing at our back.  What did we see?  The Fed (not to mention World Powers) throwing all the cheap money possible to stop the economic wheels from falling off.   Those who resent that -clearly don’t understand the need; nor the reality of what a real depression looks like.  Resentments typically can be answered by looking in the mirror -but I digress.

You see at the end of 2000 was the time when easy ‘anyone who can fog a mirror can get a mortgage‘ money started to flow into the streets.  What was starting to sink in (at least for me) was that when you move average homeownership rates from 62% to 72%, over the period of 2-4 years, you have a huge sucking sound in the tenant pool.  Combined with some property management issues, I was fighting some 15-25% vacancy rates for a good 2-3 years.  Yes -Really!?!  All the guru’s, fellow landlords, nor mentors had a solution that worked…  Talk about scary!!!  When something isn’t working in the business model (whether short or long term) and that can be fatal to one’s investing.

Talk about pain!  Heck it got to were I was afraid to buy more rentals -I mean I couldn’t even fill what I had!  It was at this moment that I finally let my guard down, took the blinders off, and realized that all my local real estate investment groups did have something to offer (beyond that pessimistic thought of “they just want me to buy a $1,000 course or overpriced property”).  What I realized was that I had been networking in an association (www.metrolinareia.org) that offered a gathering place for real estate professionals to do business with fellow real estate professionals (sure there were/are sharks; however, one just has to watch to seperate fact from fiction). . .