Determining reality & seeing YOUR your objective CLEARER

[Tommy Ray]

When I was a rookie investor 32 years ago and a rookie agent 16 years ago I did not know this... and it is a big deal...

Values have value.  Someone with integrity, competency, honesty, and willing to disclose all they know to provide true transparency is incredibly rare in any human but especially agents, brokers, and tradespersons.  They allow you to shift your focus elsewhere and lean into them, their capabilities and their integrity.  Freeing up focused time for explosive growth while avoiding negative momentum moments that break confidence and hope.  

It has been my experience humans are opaque and you can not see what is in their heart and mind.  You are left with the difficult task of distinguishing reality while managing your fears.  Do you know how to see through the marketing that surrounds people in the marketplace?  Could you be part of the problem.  I know I am.

 Let me develop this point...

As a 55 year old guy my life was shaped by the 21 years in the military.  What we said is what we meant.  Anything less than that was perceived as dishonest and deceptive.  After 2 decades of this culture I returned to civilian life with the "judgment handicap" of honesty in a largely marketing saturated, mildly deceptive and manipulated capitalism coated reality.  So the journey commenced into real estate investing on a larger scale in 2008.  The market collapsing as mortgage backed securities were being defaulted on left right and sideways...  (see the movie "the big short).  I commenced to buying tens of houses a year to buy, renovate, refi, and rent as well as some to buy, renovate and retail resale.  The time between 2008-2012 were fat times and profits were good as the margins were large and the room for error was significant.  Those times would allow me to stay in the game even though I made these errors.  Today bears not resemblance to 2008-2012 buyer beware.

1. I projected my values onto people I met.  People that would later prove they deserved none of my trust had gotten my trust because my values were the lens I saw the world through.  I was naive.  They were deceptive.  Trades has always been the greatest challenge for me.  A people that live hand to mouth may and are more likely to manipulate anything and anyone to survive.  Find tradespeople that are good people.  They will tend to have a book of business forward scheduled to where you have to wait for them.  They are doing things right.  Wait for them.  Give more value to get value and learn to lean into one another so as to create something very special. 

2. Just because a realtor, broker, or agent hold themselves out as an expert it does not mean they are. Interrogate them on the creative deals they have done: subject - 2 buys, vacation rentals, wraps, VA Vendee deals, Room 4 rent models, owner financed deals, Joint Venturing with owners to fix, and retail their homes for equity splits, and alike... Listen for those crickets .... ;). Hugely mind blowing read for you: https://www.nar.realtor/videos...

3. Tell a good story.  My grandfather could tell an epic story.  We'd listen to the story (same story) year after year each summer we visited.  We would never interrupt papaw...  I can still smell the cigarette and feel the gentle breeze and the swing bench on his carport.  Tell a good story that is the basis of your plan to your brokers, bankers, friends and families and build the coalition of the willing about a year before you need them.  The plan can be the development of a home to its highest and best use.  It can be the development of a business plan and how you are to re-gentrify a larger project or a city.  It is marketing in its most organic form.  It also gives us all something very special that is in short supply.  Strategic patience coupled with wisdom that arrives when the project comes to fruition.