WHY DO 95% OF REAL ESTATE INVESTORS FAIL?

[Toyin Dawodu]

I still find this hard to believe. 95% of would be real estate investors never buy a single house. A few months ago, I ran into a lady who has been going to seminars and REIA for more than ten years. I asked her how many properties she has bought and was shocked to learn.. None... not a single property in 10 years?

Then I begin to research the industry. I found out the failure rate is 95%. Can you imagine if our schools have a 95%

Everyday I ask myself why the failure rate is so high. How is it some many fail in spite of all the information and all the help. Or is there really any help out there? Are the Gurus doing their jobs? or is it the students that are failing the Gurus?

Let's talk about it. Maybe we can help a lot of people on this Bigger Pockets platform.

So if you are an experienced investor, flipper, or buy and hold person? What would you consider the reason for your success?

If you are a newbie or old timer who is really struggling to break through in this business, what do you think is the reason so many don't make it?

Here's my secret sauce. From day one I treated my involvement in real estate as a real business.

This means, I had an advertising budget, a lead generating and follow up process, a back end process and money source and above all an experienced mentor.  My first ad budget was $295.00 credit I got from my local news paper. 

The combination of all the above puts me shoulders above majority of the investors.

After more than 450 deals, everything just seems to fall in place, abundance of leads and lenders throwing money at me.

I actually believe this is possible for a lot of people in our industry. But they probably have to diagnose their problems first.

So what is the real reason 95% of the people fail in as real estate investors? Let's talk.

[Brie Schmidt]

I don't think 95% fail, I think a vast majority of that don't try.  These guru's pitch get rick quick with no money down, so people "want to be investors" but fail to start because they had unrealistic expectations from day 1.  

I have only been doing this for 5 years but what I have learnt is that it takes money to make money.  I get asked all the time, what can I do with $10k and my answer is "save more"  At least in my world of buy and hold $10k is not going to do much.  

I invest in an A/B area with an average purchase price of $500k.  Most people I know start with low money down programs so they can get away with a initial capital investment of around $25k but you also need reserves.  In this type of area having just 1 or 2 properties is ok because your tenant base is higher end and more stable. 

I also invest in a B/C area with an average purchase price of $80k.  So your $10k could get you a property but what you don't think about is the tenant class is lower and the ups and downs are more frequent.  I have seen many investors fail here because they only have 1 or 2 properties and when the downturns happen it kills them,  So you are going to need more money and more properties to balance out the ups and downs.

Investing takes time, it doesn't happen overnight, and I think people fail to keep with it when it doesn't happen immediately.  It also takes sacrifice.  Do you eat out for lunch every day, get coffee twice a day, have a new fancy car, and buy the latest trends?  If you live paycheck to paycheck and do all this you are never going to become an investor because you aren't willing to change your lifestyle now for something you can have in a few years.  It could take years of sacrifice and saving to get into this game and most people don't want to wait that long.  

If it was easy to take $1k and turn it into $10k easily with minimal work and sacrifice like the guru's say, then we would be the richest country in the world.   But it isn't that way.  I can tell you from my experience it is worth it all though.  I lived well below my means, worked a full time job for years while doing this on the side, persisted when others did not... and now I am enjoying the fruits of my labor.  But for years I was just working hard without seeing any benefit and I had to keep going even though there was no light at the end of the tunnel.