Beginning Investors - Listen To The Real Estate Pros
August 20, 2008
No matter where you are, you will always find people who are pessimistic about money. They will claim that, since it “takes money in order to make money,” there is nothing the average person can do to better his or her financial situation. This kind of cynicism is, in fact, unwarranted, as there is no magical force field separating the world of the rich from that of the average Joe. You shouldn’t listen to the media alarmists and others who constantly claim that the sky is falling - if you listen to the right people, you will hear that anyone can develop the tools they need in order to make money.
Press about the declining value of real estate as an investment or about skyrocketing housing prices that keep regular people out of the market altogether can make the prospect of making money through real estate investment seem almost ludicrous. Yet people are doing it - real people like you and me. And you can do it too. All you have to do is listen to the right people.
This isn’t a difficult principle. Think about the people you know who are cynical and jaded about the very possibility of financial success. Are any of them wealthy? Not a chance! If you want to know how you can make more money, don’t go to those who obviously have no clue. Find someone who has actually succeeded, and ask him or her for advice; what you’ll hear is that becoming rich as an investor really isn’t as difficult as you may think. So why doesn’t everyone invest? First of all, people are fooled by pessimists into thinking that it’s a losing game.
Most people are scared of trying to make money, based on cynicism and negative hype.
The second reason everyone isn’t investing as they should is, it’s just too easy. If you look at the lives of successful people, those people have followed a systematic plan to increase their wealth. Well, systematic plans aren’t sexy. They aren’t interesting. They’re boring, and that’s why people don’t like them. Most people would rather have the adrenaline rush of a get-rich-quick scheme than settle into a proven systematic plan to let their wealth increase for them in the background of their lives.
The media caters to those who want instant gratification and excitement. Think about it; when you pick up a newspaper, or turn on the television, the headlines of the day are invariably gruesome stories of death and destruction, and that’s because that’s what sells. It’s a strange quirk of human nature: the vast majority are all too willing to believe that the world is a harsh, cruel place, where one’s best efforts will always go unrewarded.
Luckily, this cynical viewpoint on the real estate market is not an accurate one. Not by a long shot.
If you can break the habit of thinking of life in tragic terms, of convincing yourself that there is simply not enough money to go around, then you will learn to start listening to the right people so you can develop your systematic plan for investing. And what does a systematic plan lead to? Financial success. We’ve established that the media and the majority of their audience are the wrong people to listen to, but who are the right people? The right people are those who have invested in property and profited significantly from those investments. People like me. Wouldn’t you rather listen to someone who can tell you how you can make money, rather than to people who insist on telling you how to stay poor?
Alexandria P. Anderson is a licensed Minnesota Realtor that uses the Saint Louis Park Listings to help her clients to find and purchase Saint Louis Park Homes and other Twin Cities properties.