Talk About Success or Keep Quiet?

[Michael Doherty]

Hi all,

Generally speaking, do you think it is a good or bad idea to discuss your success in real estate with friends, family and co workers? Discuss not in a gloating or bragging way but talking about specifics of past or current deals like purchase price and cash flow. Let me explain. 

Scenario 1: You let everyone know you are a real estate investor, they know it's your full time occupation and you are doing very well from a financial standpoint. You've divulged how many houses/units you own and perhaps the cash flow from those houses and you tell other's they can be successful too with hard work. The problem here is you may receive UNWANTED attention and could lead to headaches down the road.

Scenario 2: You fly under the radar, you let people know you do real estate full time but keep to yourself and never get into the specific financials of the deals your doing. The problem here being, by not promoting your success and passion for the industry you may lose out on connections, private investors and potential future deals. 

Obviously both scenario's have their pros and cons, but generally speaking, as people build a their portfolio's what scenario do you find yourself in and why? 

[Caleb Heimsoth]

@Michael Doherty. I have a strict policy of telling zero of my co workers. That’s undue attention I don’t need and likely a bunch of stupid stories about how I’ll get “toilet calls at 2 am” and so forth. Some of my family knows and some doesn’t. Again I don’t need the attention or judgements. When a 22 year old buys a property out of state it’s gonna yield lots of opinions I don’t really need. Some of my friends know, but again I rarely if ever mention it.