​Nearly 400 houses later, lessons we learned

[Jason Bible]

I have not posted this update in a year or so. Quick background, I started in real estate with my biz partner Tom full time in July of 2013. Since then we have bought nearly 400 houses, borrowed and paid back nearly $60MM in private money, and almost $10MM in rehab. Below are 20 things we have learned over the last few years.

1. Be yourself, no reason to be anyone else. Tell your seller this is your first deal. Never seem bigger than you are. If its just you or you and your spouse in this business, don’t hide it.

2. There are no secrets or shortcuts.

3. Make decisions quickly but be slow to change your mind. At Ignite this year I was chatting with a few coaches about how bad most REIA's are. One person said, Jason you should start a REIA. In less than 24 hours we implemented a REIA in Houston and we just started one in DFW last month.

4. Be of value to your customers. Give value first. Symptoms of poor value is crushed margins and having to up your “bid” for a property. If money is your customers first concern you run a commodity business and are not building a brand.

5. Business is never about you. It is always about them. They don’t care about your why, they care about their why. Why are they selling the house? If you don’t know the real reason; making an offer is a waste of time. Price out of place is a no sale.

6. There's a big difference between investors and business owners. Investors deploy their capital into deals and realize a return, ROI. Business owners create profit through a consistent system of generating leads and producing deals. Few know this distinction and it is one of the biggest reasons for failure, only second to inaction.

7. Success requires action AND patience. You must execute relentlessly; however, it takes time to realize gains from your labor. If you’re expecting to make massive amounts of money in 6-12 months and only work on your business 40 hours a week you are going to be incredibly disappointed.

8. The more complicated the deal, the less money is made. Simplicity yields the highest rate of return.

9. Focus on one strategy. One of the most detrimental attitudes of any new business is trying to generate revenue from every lead. Know the house you want to buy and only pursue that end. Our modern economy only rewards those that are highly specialized. Generalists are broke.

10. The difference between armatures and professionals is consistency. Those that consistently do become successful. I recently met someone that knocked on doors every day for six months and got their first deal. He knocks on one door after another. Once he got that first deal he reinvested in his business and built an empire.

11. Not everyone is cut out to be business owners. Ive met people that I thought would flourish in this business and not make it and I’ve met folks I thought would fail build an empire.

12. Never stop marketing, never stop marketing, never stop marketing. If you do, close shop

13. If you are not working nights and weekends, you wont make it in the business.

14. Be extremely careful selecting partners. I’ve seen more partnerships implode than those that survived, even fewer were successful. To partner you must have a very highly level of business maturity.

15. How you offer is more important than what you offer.

16. The longer I do this, almost 4 years, I find there are few ways to do this business right and a litany of ways to do it wrong.

17. What scales works, everything else is background noise.

18. what gets measured gets managed, but not everything that is measured matters. Ex. Response rates, one of the most worthless metrics in marketing.

19. A contract is not a sales or marketing document. It’s the consummation of a relationship steeped in relieving the sellers burdens, your company’s value, and your integrity. It is your word, close or don’t, but never contract if you don’t intend to close.

20. Stay humble.