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Updated over 9 years ago, 05/02/2015
'Get a Piece a dat REI Pie' Pattern Phenomenon: Rash Expectations?
maybe i'm the only one noticing it or seeing things but after having been on BP for a few months now, i notice practically day in and day out new member posts (welcome!) with pretty much the same sketch:
have no money, have no credit, have no experience, but want to close on my first deal ASAP, tell me how to do it!
my first association would be a striking resonance with the many infomercials out there (Than, Armando, etc) that paint the picture of someone maybe buried in 50k in debt, living in a garage, trying to make ends meet and then somehow they hear their 'calling' and start 'flipping' wholesaling' or otherwise investing in passive income property despite having any creditworthiness nor savings, somehow. seriously?
the 2nd association it resonates is the highly consumption-driven society we live in. in my area (coastal, urban southern california) i'm surrounded by 2 distinct lifestyles. there's the majority: seems like 95% of the local population who are renters, driving luxury cars, sporting fancy clothes, jewelry, hairdos, etc but obviously living paycheck to paycheck as exemplified by hardly a day somebody or the other is spotted getting their car repo'ed by a camera crew. the rarer are the landlords, who in this area seem to be of mostly asian demographics (chinese, koreans, japanese) who live obviously very frugally: old 80s model sedan, oldfashion business cloths, always eating simple meal from home, seemingly never splurging $$$ other than into expanding their portfolio), my observance is relatively very few landlords in the area own relatively huge portfolios, each.
with the advent of these infomercials and the internet (ie, BP) more and more people want to get a 'piece of the REI pie' and more power to them. there does seem to be this dream of rags to riches and while its ok to dream, do most people actually expect their life to turn around like that, as portrayed in most of the infomercials or even in the everyday setting where the masses living paycheck to paycheck, are spending their last expendable dollars not on depositing into savings acount, but blowing $20 on scratchies etc.
in summary, is my observation reminds me of my days when i worked on wall st and the 'ra trace' was so obvious with dime a dozen stock brokers makin 6fig salaries at some point but blowing it on recreational drugs apparently costing thousands of dollars a pop to the point the next week they are broke again and that $ wasnt invested but wasted. if u seen the movie 'Limitless' it sould resonate with the psyche of how i believe our society is conditioned into a delusionally bipolar'grass is greener' mindet where we are either very happy/successful, otherwise we are down in a ditch waiting for the next opportunity to get back up there and be ecstatically happy and successful in the future.
what about incremental. to me, that's how savings and investment actually materialize. heck, the very word itself 'invest' should encompass the fundamental of not consuming today in order to have more tomorow.
i myself have times when i am broke but thats almost always right after a close where i invested than liquidated. my final thoughts are practically nobody on BP is living in the horrid shantytowns of any continent for matter where they are living in starving conditions with no food/water available on a daily basis nor having nothing to call their own other than the clothes on their back. such is the case out there for some large portion of some 8 BILLION humans on this planet. many, many if not most people out there all over the world don't own anything at all except the clothes they are wearing right now. likewise, many/most people on this planet don't have a practically endless supply of food so they dont go hungry.
here in northamerica, luckly even homeless folks if there hungry can simply find out where the nearest 'soup kitchen' is and get a wholesome meal on a daily basis indefinitely. we have so many resources at our fingertips that it is so easy to start saving up 100s of dollars a month even based on minimum wage (whereas a family overseas living in rural areas with no local jobs other than living off the land, as is the majority of situations across the globe, may be lucky to even make $100 a YEAR!).
i do admire the added funding resources aside from savings & conventional loans like hard/private money loans -and the fastrack way to in fact generate profits from nothing, via dishing out 'wholesale' contingency offers then upselling the crap out of the property - but like many has to be pointed out to newbies to BP, even with those a downpayment is required to invest. all in all, i'm appauled at the widespread connotation - often spun by mainstream media (ie, tv, internet) and the material they pump out, infomercials and all - that somehow people will 'discover' how they can make big money from no money.
when in reality the underlying problem to me it seems to be the western norm to be making a decent salary (heck, even teens working at mcDs or whatever) and all but just be spending it day and day out but at the same time expecting somehow to get rich one day- without incrementally investing in a wealthier future any.
how could adults these days chronically have no money, chronically have no creditworthiness, and *then* decide they want to start INVESTING?!