2006 Your year for success!

General Real Estate Investing
1

2006 Your year for success!

Do you want 2006 to be your year for success as a real estate investor?

It is my hope that you answered yes to the simple yet challenging question.

What does it take to be a success?

Let me share with you my thoughts on this and what I did to turn my financial life around from living pay day to pay day to living large and having fun in the process!

One most important factor to becoming a success in real estate is knowledge!

Many years ago I sat down and took an evaluation of my life and this is what I came up with:

I worked hard
I made money for my employers
I had nothing to show for my efforts but employer awards and a paycheck that kept me struggling to survive every week.

Taking this into account I asked myself why have I allowed myself to be in this trap and what can I do to turn this around in my favor?

So I set out to make myself a success in real estate by taking several steps as follows:

I took a class to teach me how to read faster at a local community college

I took classes on real estate such as;

Principals and Practices
Real Estate Contracts and Law
Escrow
Finance
Real Estate Math
Principles of Real Estate Appraisal
Real Estate Financing
Contract law

I went to the public library and read everything I could find about real estate investing since I had little funds available.

I started to purchase used books and cassette tapes on real estate investing from yard sales and used bookstores on real estate investing.

I did a few deals so I took some courses on real estate investing from:

AD Kessler - Al Lowry - Bill Bowen - Bill Bronchick - Bill Gatten - Carleton H. Sheets - Charles Givens - Claude Diamond - David Finkel - Ed Beckley - Ernie Kessler - I.G. Williams - J.P. Vaughan - John Adams - John Beck - John Behle - John Burley - John Locke - John Schaub - John Ulmer - JP Vaughn - Lance Young - Larry Burkett - Larry Holder - Larry Pino - Lonnie Scruggs - Robert G. Allen - Robert Irwin - Robert Kiyosaki - Robert Shemin - Ron LeGrand - Russ Whitney -Ted Thomas - Wade Cook - Wealth Builders - Just to name a few.

Ten’s of thousands of dollars later I had so much knowledge that I thought my head would burst and on top of it all I was scared to death to step out and do what I had learned so I got another job and the living paycheck to paycheck continued until a dear friend asked me how long have I been stupid.

Yes he upset me greatly but he helped me pull my head out of the lower part of my body and I started to put action into what I’ve learned about real estate investing.

When it was all, said and done I turned my life around from living paycheck to paycheck to being worth millions!

So ask you’re self-what are you willing to do to become a success.
How much time are you willing to spend to become a success?
What are you willing to give up to become a success?

When you do become a success what are you willing to do to keep your success?

I have found out the hard way in life that the more knowledge I acquire the stupider my competitor gets!

Life as a real estate investors has been good to me!

It allows me to provide for my family
It allows me to donate time and money
It allows me to help others

And best of all I no longer live paycheck to paycheck!

2

Great story Johnmichael. I think it will really help people just starting out. The moral here is to just do it.

I guess you learned that “doing it” is the hardest part. You read sooooo many courses and I’m not sure why. Did you not believe what the first, second or third course taught you? :hammerhead:

Glad to see you came to your senses and made it work. I too have had success with real estate and like you, worth a few million. Now my goal is to be 18,000,000 rich. :boink: Always looking and learning new things.

You know what? Making the 18 million is no different than starting out to make that first million. You have to figure out how to do it and then do it. We are done investing for now so looking for other ventures to get there.

Highest regards,

3

John Michael

The First REI course I took had more than one educator.
The other ones were horrible, real bad. But you were GREAT. :banana: Because I could see in you that if someone did not give up and decided to keep plugging away. Keep studying. That they could make a lot of money in this business.

Thank you for being such an inspiration.

As for the need for some people to do a lot of research on skydiving before jumping out of the plane. We are all different. That is what makes things exciting. Me, I wanted to know how the parachute works.

;D

Bruce

4

Diane,

You are so correct making 18 million is no different than starting out.

It’s the fear that holds so many back :cry:

I still take many courses, read and now have tons of cd’s and dvd’s some good some bad but if I learn one thing from any of it I can make money from it for the rest of my life.

5

Thank you for such a postive post and you have inspired me ;D

6

John Michael,

Gret story and thanks for the inspiration that you always give to others.

I started reading a course about REI in June and decided to take action after reading only ONE COURSE, which was not all that great. I’m a 5 month old newbi who has aquired 4 houses as of to date with crappy credit and no money. I’m in the process of rehabbing two right now. The best part of all this I got into ALL four of these houses with a total of $1,000.00 out of pocket (spent as a down on my first deal) these were not a package deal they are all different owners. On my first rehab I borrowed the money from my in-laws. I’m not gonna get into my whole story right now but, the point is just like John Michael and Diane said you have to take ACTION!!! You can read a million books but what good is it to read day in and day out and not use what you have learned. I took action and didn’t even know what I was doing, I’ve always been a good wheelin and dealin type of guy. When I made my first deal I was so worried about making sure the contract looked professional that I spent more time on that contract than I did making the deal and when I took the signed contract (that I spent hours on) to the title company they showed me some mistakes I made and I had to take their contract and refill it out and have the sellers re-sign again, boy was I embarrassed!!!
In other words take action and don’t worry about making mistakes you will have people help you out who specialize in that area. Don’t be scared, make your mistakes, learn and keep moving forward. Don’t let fear control your future.
I still don’t really know what I’m doing but you can bet I will still be looking for houses to buy, rehab and sale. I know in my heart 2006 will be my year for success!!! And it can be your’s too. All you have to do is go out and get it.
I do continue to read but, I take ACTION!!!

John

7

Great posts everyone, very inspiring.
Thank You!

8

Yes, I believe you’re right about the fear Johnmichael

I love learning and reading too about many things. The internet has given us the world at our fingertips.

I feel that for some, reading too many courses BEFORE starting may be confusing. You read one course and the info is good then another and equally good but now which do you follow?
I think it would be better to pick, read and study 1 course, do it and THEN study other methods. This way you don’t entangle the methods and get confused. The greatest learning of all comes from doing, hands on.

Again, it was a pleasure reading your story Johnmichael. :slight_smile:

9

That’s what I have done over the past 20 years Diane not all at once as I’m sure my mind would have been fried :stuck_out_tongue:

My you get your 18m in 06