How do you involve your kids in your real estate business?

[Matt Miller]

The subject line sums up what I am asking.  A little background on why I am asking:

I have two girls and they are likely a little to young to jump in and help, but I want to collect some ideas to get them started as they grow older.  One of my goals is to build my business with my family in mind and teach them the business.  They could go into business for themselves (real estate or not), be my future business partners, or do real estate to supplement a W-2 job.

[J Scott]

I find that a lot of people who want their kids to be involved in their businesses focus too much on the tactical aspects and not enough on the strategic aspects.  For example, I know a lot of real estate investors who take their kids to the job site, show them how to swing a hammer, have them paint the walls, etc.  While this is great, what they're teaching their kids is how to be a contractor -- not how to be an investor.

While it's important that kids learn the tactical aspect of whatever business you might be in (just in case they decide to go into that business themselves), I think it's much more important that they learn the strategic aspects of the business.  For example, what if you spend 10 years showing your kids all the tactical aspects of being a real estate investor and then they decide to start a tech company?  Have you given them any practical knowledge or direction to help them be successful?

Instead of focusing on tactical, I prefer to focus on strategic:

- Research:  Gathering data and analyzing it before making decisions.  Teach kids that jumping in with both feet is a good trait, but doing so blindly can be disastrous.  Teaching how to make decisions based on data and analytics, as opposed to hope or fear.

- Decision Making:  Teaching kids WHY we do things in our business, not just WHAT we do.  I can demonstrate to my kids rebuilding a kitchen by taking them to a property under construction, but that doesn't teach them WHY I'm rebuilding a kitchen versus just doing cosmetic renovations versus knocking the whole house down.  Discussing how I make a list of alternatives for a project (or for the whole business) and then how I analyze each one to make the best decision possible.

- Adaption:  Learning that what worked yesterday may not work today or tomorrow.  Business is like a game of chess -- you have to be several moves ahead of your opponents if you want to consistently be successful.

- Cash Flow:  Understanding how and why money goes out and comes in.  More importantly, the fact that these things won't always happen when you need them to, so make sure you plan ahead.

- Negotiation:  Hopefully my kids will learn from watching, but there are underlying messages here as well.  For example, always respect others when negotiating and not taking advantage of people (because this will hurt your business later).

- Ethics:  What are some things you should and shouldn't do in business?  How do you handle competition?  When is "cheating" right and wrong (i.e., when is it cheating and when is it "business").

And lots of other stuff that is more generic than how to rehab a house.  These are skills that are transferable to any business and even to non-business situations.

My goal as a parent is to teach my kids HOW to think...not WHAT to think.  If I can do that, they'll be successful in any situation, not just those situations that they're familiar with because I happened to put them in that situation at some point.