It took me quite a long time to stop comparing myself to my colleagues. I learned to keep my head down and just stay in my lane pushing the edges of my learning with each property. When you can commit to that, let me tell you what to expect… shit get’s done. Opportunities arise within your familiarity zone, your expertise rises, your reputation rises. You quickly become known as an action taker. I promise you, you will look up from what you accomplished and be amazed at your success.
My Time
You know because my time is so limited and my focus so narrow, I took a lot of short cuts to take action on properties. Things like buying Rent TO Own leads off other investors, buying properties other investors found, paying them a finders fee, using family initially as investors, followed by friends. I literally went through all my closest potentials before I headed out to find folks as investors outside my immediate circle of influence. Sort of always felt like cheating that I wasn’t doing all the work of a true investor. I look back now and think, you know girl you were just working smart!! The path of least resistance. You trusted these folks and they trusted you, they were willing to move forward, why I didn’t consider these folks true investors is crazy. The most important piece of these investors is that they got you moving forward. Early on you absolutely need to do what you need to do to move forward (legal of course). Nothing is written in stone, if you made a mistake it is absolutely not the end of the world to figure a way out.
My Investors
I recently went through all those feelings of cheating and not a real investor again. I hit a point about a year ago where I didn’t want to work harder than I was working and felt I had more than enough investors to keep me going throughout that year. So I stopped soliciting investors I couldn’t quickly or immediately serve. I continued buying properties and assigning them to my various investors as they wanted to be involved. That was great until they change the lending rules and many of my investors had to put the breaks on due to difficulty getting financing. Yet, I continued buying. Initially, I picked them up personally but by the 3 rd property I was started to get frustrated that none of my current investors were able to pick up one of these deals. I had already waived conditions on all believing my investor finding days were over. The first 2 properties were fine but the third I absolutely needed an investor for.
My Solution
Yes, 12 years in, over 70 transactions complete , I sigh and say yes, it still get’s messy from time to time. With 6 weeks to figure out financing and 2 weeks in with no solution, I am disappointed to admit, I actually called my lawyer to discuss what would happen if I couldn’t close. It’s amazing how the creative juices start to kick in when the threat of being sued by multiple people is looming. Somehow I had pigeon holed myself into now that I have done multiple deals worth many millions I can no longer use the initial “cheat” investors that helped get me to where I am today. I look back and think to myself why did I cause myself so much suffering. The solution was always there, I just didn’t want to take the path of least resistance. I broke down and invited a family member to partner with me. Less than 24 hours later I had an investor and enough cash to buy the house outright.
