Five Things #2 - Your Very First Deal...

Do you remember your first kiss...???

I don't - guess I'm weird.

But I do remember my first deal... ahhh.

Truth is, your first real estate deal is not only your toughest, it is your most important.

You can not get out there and do 100 deals this year, until you get past #1

Truthfully, I do not know why anyone would want to do 100 houses in a year, any more than anyone would want to be married to more than one woman at a time, but then I got something special ;)

o.k., back to the real estate discussion.

Your first deal will absolutely be the most challenging, BECAUSE, it is your first deal. And the bottom line is that they do not teach you how to be a real estate investor at The Wharton School, and based on my discussions with a number of friends, they do not teach it to you at Stanford, Harvard, Columbia or any other IVY, nor at Johns Hopkins, Maryland, George Mason Towson or Loyola.

You learn this business by doing it.

So If I knew then what I know now, I would definitely put together my very first investment deal while I was still working as an employee for someone else, if for no other reason - you got nothing to loose if it falls apart.

Seriously.

If you do not need the money to survive, you can put together a terrible deal for your first deal, and NO ONE CARES!

You won't have to "splane it" to your in-laws, your boss or your kids, any more than you had to "Splane" any number of hobbies/interests you got "hot to trot" over and ultimately gave up on. It would have been just another fad.

What does it cost to really get into golf...? $2,000, $5,000 Let's see: clubs, lessons, golf trip with the guys, GREENS FEES, oh and how about those tickets to Augusta and airplane fair, hotels, etc, etc, etc.

Ski trip to Vail...?

Sky diving, horse back riding...?

You can pull together a real estate deal for less than $5,000 of your "hard earned" dollars, totally mess it up, and still come out better than a 100 other hobbies/interests out there that do not have the power to make you financially F-R-E-E.

Why didn't I know this back then....?

Maybe it was all the hype, maybe the self-imposed fear - who knows.

But when you really break it down, the cost of getting into the real estate game is about the same as any "good" hobby, but at 43 its too late to plan on retiring off my "Golf Winnings".

And it is a joke to think that I am going to play any kind of "Pro Anything" at this stage, but it does not matter how old, or how young you are, when you make the decision to start investing, you are only 7 deals away from financial freedom. Assuming you don't mess up the fist couple too badly.

So why don't more people get it in gear and get their first deal done...?

Let't talk more about this tomorrow...