Just buy something for goodness sakes.

[Trevor Lohman]

This is a new member re-intoduction,

and a long one at that. 

I'm the type of person who gets interested in anything and wants to try everything. Life direction-ADD I guess. (If this sounds familiar I hope you'll read on, If not turn back now! lol)

So naturally a few years ago after graduating from school I became real estate obsessed. I read everything I could find and felt like I could tell anyone everything about real estate... but never bought any. (Other than my own house)

I had all of standard excuses running through my head. 

California is too expensive. 

I should wait until the market corrects

I need more money.

Out of state investing is crazy!

An MLS deal will never be a good deal

Cash flow on paper doesn't equal cash flow in real life

I'm too busy to think about direct mail, etc, etc 

The kernel of truth in all of these excuses helped me to convince myself I was being prudent and being smart by waiting until I had more money or more relationships or more of this or more of that. 

Well a couple years went by and not much had changed. I had learned how to sell options, how to remodel my house, how  to day trade, how to start a self directed ira, I started a Physical Therapy clinic, mined bitcoin, made a few websites, I think I may have even learned how to raise chickens/honeybees/ and grow organic vegetables. Oh and I can make signage and home decor with a CNC router table I bought.... and don't forget the rentable wedding photo booth... 

But still no real estate and no big fat bank account. See a problem here?  

I don't remember why but for some reason I popped back on the site and looked at some of my old forum posts. Haha I was a little embarrassed to be honest. I sounded like I knew so much and was right around the corner from pulling the trigger in every post! What was crazy was how little my excuses had changed over the years. 

California is even more expensive.

The market is definitely going to correct now.

I have more money but now I have way more expenses

Out of state investing is still crazy!

There are no deals anywhere

Cash flow on paper doesn't equal cash flow in real life

I'm way more busy now than I was then.

So, I decided to try something new, and that's to not try anything new. To just take a breath and focus on something I've already started. 

So I bought an investment property. Finally. What in the world was I waiting for??

Best decision I've ever made. Have I made a bunch of money? Nope, just bought it yesterday. Have I learned an immense amount of valuable experience? Nope. Just an out of state turnkey property that 3 days ago I could have easily talked myself out of. But it has changed everything... I've committed to something. 

This isn't googling how to make money passively online for 8 hours. This is committing financially and emotionally to an actual real life decision. I'm a real estate investor now. Haha okay okay. I bought a cheap house that's being professionally managed by someone else. I haven't exactly forged an empire that will create generational wealth. 

... but I evaluated a deal, made a pro forma, and decided this was a minor risk I could afford to take, but it feels so much bigger than that. 

Should I have found a way to do business in California? Maybe. Should I have worked on finding the deal myself and developed those skills? Probably.  But guess what, I can still do those things. Are some experienced investors reading this and predicting failure due to an unexpected maintenance issue, or failure to manage my manager? Most likely. (it's coming from a good place though I'm sure).

 The point is I did something and man it feels good. 

I went from planning elaborate 10 year strategies in my head, to actually talking about real estate with real people in real life (crazy for us millennials I know I know). 

I have no business giving advice. But if you see any similarities in yourself to what I've just wrote.... seriously, just buy something. Don't second guess yourselves for years because you're worried your friends and family will think you made a bad investment or don't know what you're doing.  

Take a relatively small risk, map out some exit strategies, and whether it fails spectacularly or succeeds tremendously I think it will be the best decision you ever made. Could I lose money on this deal? Maybe. I don't think so though. Personally, whatever happens I think I'll be happy I took this first step. 

Give it a shot and tell me if I'm wrong about all of this, 

Thanks for reading..

Trevor