Did anyone get cold feet or regrets during their first deal

[Jose G Delvalle Bueno]

I am in the middle of my first true rental property rehab and I have to admit I am a bit nervous. The property is in a C/B neighborhoood in CT. I wanted to hear from others and see if they were nervous or got cold feet during their first property. Thanks everyone.

[George Pauley]

I have second thoughts on my 20th deal!  My first thing I remind myself when I begin to doubt is repeat a mantra:  "Do the math and the math will tell you what to do."  If the deal makes sense (mathematically) then I should do it.  In fact, it would horrible for me NOT to do the deal.  I imagine myself 10 years in the future lamenting the fact that I was too chicken to pull the trigger and make the deal.

Yes, there are a lot of unknowns in any deal so "doing the math" is of questionable use.  But, as we do more and more deals, the "variance" of those unknowns begins to decline.  And even if you haven't done a lot of deals, many others have done those deals and can give advice to help you decrease the unknowns.

Finally, I was at an investment seminar a couple of months ago.  Many of us had gathered for drinks and conversation afterwards.  We noticed that all of us had stories about real estate investments that did not work out the way we expected.  But, importantly, all of these deals did work out, just not the way we expected.  For example my story was about a cash flow investment I made that never actually cash flowed.  But I sold it after 7 years for twice what I bought it for (+$150k).  There are many ways we can make money with real estate, usually if one way isn't working, another way does.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that real estate is actually pretty forgiving so relax and know that it's going to work out.