New Investor: Fear of starting

[Stephen Colaco]

Hello BP, my name is Stephen and I am looking to start my real estate investment journey. I have been interested in real estate investing for years because my family has always drilled it into my head that it is a good investment. Well I guess I am finally taking their advice. I have been reading a lot of the posts, listening to the podcast and reading the books put out by BP and the ones recommended by the show hosts and the guests. I am sure that this has been asked before but what has helped you get over analysis paralysis and fear of, "What if I am making a mistake? It is an expensive mistake" or "Can I really do this? If it was so 'easy' why isn't everyone doing it?" I am absolutely going to go through with it and buy but I am just looking for what you all did. Any words of encouragement or thoughts of what helped you with jumping in would be really great.
I am looking to buy in the next couple months because I am transitioning to a new job and a new location, so I want to be wise about where I am buying. I am looking to buy a duplex and house hack it then rent the extra rooms in my unit. I hope you all stay safe. Have a great day and thank you for reading.

P.S. As a nurse, please stay inside so we don't have to meet that way.

[Nathan Gesner]

Real estate investing is a very forgiving thing. I manage hundreds of rentals for 150 different owners. The vast majority of them have no idea what a good investment looks like, have never analyzed a rental property in their life, and they made costly mistakes that sometimes ate up several years of income. Yet they continued to plug along and eventually started making some good cash flow and appreciation. 

My point? Just jump in. Your mistake won't kill you and your mistakes will be erased over time while you figure things out.

You can improve the odds by learning some basics of analyzing investments and trying to buy better deals than what the average investor purchases. Watch a few videos from Brandon on YouTube and learn how to analyze. Then analyze at least a dozen or so properties and see what constitutes a "good" deal. Then jump in and don't look back.

P.S. I prefer to meet people outside because I operate on facts, not fear. We don't even know the death rate of COVID-19 because we don't know the number of people infected that show no symptoms. Right now, based on numbers we do know, the survival rate for a person under 45 in NYC is about 99.94%. If we knew how many people were infected but a-symptomatic, that number would be around 99.99%.