A little advice from someone who's been there

[Minna Reid]

All you newbies - I'm a little further along than a newbie...But I'm learning the hard way...I crashed on my first rental, and my first rehab. I was way overly optimistic about EVERYTHING.
BUT - hey you have all the resources right here - Listen to what the EXPERIENCED folks on this board tell you...not the newbies. You can save yourself a lot of grief. If they say 70% and you justify 85% in your mind - YOU WILL LOSE. 2 or 3 k WON'T finance that rehab. You WON'T sell in three days. NO CASH FLOW will never cause you anything but a headache. Realtors will lie to you. Sellers will lie. Don't trust their words. DO YOUR DILIGENCE. Run the numbers....run the comps...get a contractor to run you realistic rehab estimates...do the cash flow analysis with real world expenses. Don't justify bad investments to yourself because you're dying to get into real estate investing.
Don't kid yourself. Making it in this business takes more than you expect. Just a few thoughts I wish I would have listened to, but didn't...and now I'm reiterating...lol.