Let Me Unclog Your Toilet

[Daniel A.]

When I hear someone who says real estate is not for them because they don't want to have to unclog a toilet, I inwardly laugh. Sometimes outwardly. You see these people who wake up at 6am and work until 4 or 5, talk about how they hate their job, about how their boss sucks, about how crummy the pay is.

Yet, they wake up every day and they repeat. And they repeat. And they repeat.

They are comfortable with that lifestyle even though they want more. That lifestyle brings them a paycheck every month. It's as certain as you can expect.

Real estate, on the other hand, brings with it uncertainty. A lot is at stake. 

But, for those who say they avoid real estate because they don't want to unclog a toilet, I want them to think about that for a moment. How long does it take to unclog a toilet? Usually it's just a minute or two. Ten minutes, on the upper end. If you have a rental property that brings in $300 bucks a month after expenses and you have to unclog a toilet once a month and it takes ten minutes, you just got paid $300 for ten minutes of your time. Of course I'm not including time to go to the property, etc., but my point is that people will work 30 hours to make $300 before taxes, yet they don't want to do real estate because they don't want to unclog a toilet.

Now, we could go into detail about how it's a miasma of other reasons as well, but if you're saying that you don't want to get into real estate because of clogged toilets, then really you're just using that as an excuse to mask your fear. Why not just say, Real estate isn't for me? Oftentimes people just don't have the mindset to handle the responsibilities associated with running rental properties, and there is nothing wrong with that. You have to figure out what works for you.

But for me, I will gladly unclog a toilet if it means I get paid $300 a month for it.