Why You Should Never Take a Break as a Real Estate Investor

[Jonathan Greene]

Taking action isn't only investing in real estate. You should take a break from buying if the deals don't match your buy box, you are out of money, or for several other reasons (partner isn't on board, over-leveraged on different properties, acting out of FOMO, etc.). Still, you should never take a break from looking, touring, vetting, and analyzing. You can't take six months off from reviewing properties and hop back in like nothing happened. Stuff happened.

If I were to sum up the one thing that I think investors aren't doing enough, it would be getting real-life reps. Real-life reps, to me, means seeing properties in person, whatever your asset class. What you see on the spreadsheet is a small part of every story. Boots on the ground, or lack thereof, are where the mistakes are made. Of course, the smaller the property, the more necessary that you see every inch of it because there isn't a business running on top of the land like large-scale multifamily, self-storage, industrial, and more. But even if you want to do large deals, you need comparable reps.

Technology has made it easy to "analyze" deals. Still, if you aren't whittling down the number you are analyzing financially to a small subset you see before deciding what to do, you are missing an essential part of getting to the tipping point of expertise in your field. The most successful investors have looked at thousands of properties in person in their lifetimes. So, even when the market is challenging, you can still see properties and stay current.

Don't take a break when the rates are high. Don't take a break when the weather is terrible. Don't take a break when others are taking a break. Removing all skills from the equation, if you don't take a break from participating as a real estate investor in some way each day, you will stay far ahead of everyone else who keeps subbing themselves out and then asking to get back in when the game is already out of reach.