My fear, your fear, everyone's fear

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My fear, your fear, everyone's fear

Eric Sipe
Rental Property Investor · Dunedin, FL · Member since 2019 · 55 posts · 26 votes

Fear.

Fear drives us, motivates us, and can stop us dead in our tracks if left unchecked.

I'm nearing my first RE purchase and I have fear. I don't fear a bad deal. I know I am competent and will find a great deal for a purchase. I won't buy into just any old property. The property and deal have to hit every single bullseye on my calculator before I even consider buying it.

What I do fear is the tenant. Or the lack thereof. People have told me ways to get potential tenants to look at a property and ways to keep a great tenant, but I haven't been told how to get a potential tenant to bite. How to get a potential tenant to consider renting from me and then actually rent.

When I purchase my great deal, what if no one wants to rent? What if no one decides to rent my units and I become a homeless man living on the side of an alley?

What if. The two word phrase that is fear incarnate.

I will not let my fear and my what ifs keep me from moving forward. I will drive on and purchase my first REI.

What are your what ifs? Will you let fear stop you dead in your tracks?

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Frank Wong
Real Estate Broker · Bay Area · Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 3k+ votes
7y

It's simple.  If you fear the tenant or fear being a landlord and property investor then don't do it and be POOR. It can be just as easy as that.  Now if you don't want to be poor and want to be rich accept what @Jim K. said that these things will happen nothing you can do about it. It's all part of the game.  Once you realize that the worst case scenario isn't that bad compared to what things could be in the world the fear is gone. You still have your health, you live in America, you have tomorrow to try again.  Tenant issues are nothing. 

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  • Alan Pederson
    Investor · Kennedale, TX · Member since 2016 · 219 posts · 349 votes
    7y

    You can have a thousand what if's but for me the biggest what if was when I realized that if I don't do this, where will I be 10 years from now if I don't?

    3Reply
  • Eric Sipe
    OP
    Rental Property Investor · Dunedin, FL · Member since 2019 · 55 posts · 26 votes
    7y

    @Alan Pederson

    That's a great one that motivates! That's what I thought to myself when I started to worry about not finding tenants in the future.

    0Reply
  • Patrick M.
    WI · Member since 2018 · 123 posts · 69 votes
    7y

    @Eric Sipe my fear is similar to yours but rather "at what price?".  I know I'll get a renter but will I get a renter in the price range I'm hoping for?  I'm not going about it blindly, I've done comps but there is little data.  Either way though it will rent.  

    1Reply
  • Jim K.
    Handyman · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2018 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes
    7y

    @Eric Sipe

    Jesus, man, this is not Dune and you do not need to recite the Bene Gesserit mantra against fear:

    I must not fear.Fear is the mind-killer.
    Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
    I will face my fear.
    I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
    And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
    Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
    Only I will remain

    You're gonna screw this up once or twice. Take that as a given. All these people who post with their horror stories of tenants and problems? You're going to be one of them, sooner or later. It will cost you money and it will hurt. But for now, buy three books on landlording and look up how to advertise and screen for tenants. It's not rocket science, and if you fail, well, you don't have to fail forever. It's not written in stone.

    As for your fear that you will become "a homeless man living on the side of an ally," there are worse things than being homeless, in my book. Being a lousy husband. A bad father. The kind of person who is always found on the sidelines, never in the game, terrified of putting a foot wrong because he spends his whole life running from risk and sneering at anyone who actually tries to do anything useful.

    You should worry more about being those things than bring broke. Lot more honor in being a homeless financial failure than a faithless financial mediocrity in life.

    3Reply
  • Frank Wong
    Real Estate Broker · Bay Area · Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    7y

    It's simple.  If you fear the tenant or fear being a landlord and property investor then don't do it and be POOR. It can be just as easy as that.  Now if you don't want to be poor and want to be rich accept what @Jim K. said that these things will happen nothing you can do about it. It's all part of the game.  Once you realize that the worst case scenario isn't that bad compared to what things could be in the world the fear is gone. You still have your health, you live in America, you have tomorrow to try again.  Tenant issues are nothing. 

    4Reply
  • Scott Mac
    Austin, TX · Member since 2019 · 5k+ posts · 5k+ votes
    7y

    @Eric Sipe

    Hi Eric,

    Simply hire an experienced local property manager.

    Try going to IREM.org, the Institute of Real Estate Management, and searching for ARM certified brokers in your area.

    Call a few and discuss your FEAR with them.

    (and as far as living in an alley, living on the beach would probably be a lot nicer.)

    Good Luck!

    2Reply
  • Bill F.
    Investor · Boston, MA · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    7y

    @Eric Sipe if no one wants to rent your great deal, is it really a great deal?

    Not finding a suitable tenant in some arbitrary timeline is not a fear, but rather an unavoidable eventuality of being in the rental business. 

    My fears? Having not studied enough, not being smart enough, tough enough, strong enough, decisive enough so that one of my preventable failures causes someone else to suffer and/or lose their life, which in turn causes their family to bear the the permanent burden of my mistakes that could have been prevented with more effort on my part.

    However, if you follow the Stoics, then all of these emotions, particularly fear, come from within and we endure them by our own choice. " ...your actions or frames of mind shall be ascribed to no other cause than the decisions of your will, that is to say, that you wanted to do them, And this applies to what you do good as well as what you do evil" -Eppictetus

    So I guess the follow up question is why are you afraid of not finding tenants? Is it because it is something that is not measurable before the purchase and lies outside your control?

    2Reply
  • Eva Machicado
    Member since 2019 · 13 posts · 17 votes
    7y

    I agree with what others have said here. You will get a tenant, that is for sure. Making it an experienced property manager's problem instead of yours will help with your fear because they will have the experience and strengths you lack to get it done. You fear because, right now, it is something you haven't done, so your lizard brain will naturally panic because it doesn't know what comes next. 

    On another note, if getting a tenant (or not), is going to make or break the difference for you being homeless then perhaps you have over leveraged yourself? If you bought the property 100% cash and had emergency funds aside from that, and had plenty of money for you yourself to live on, then you wouldn't really be worrying at all, right? Just food for thought on the next one maybe?

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