Microwave and Crockpot Investing

Our society is an instant gratification society. I know I have fallen into this trap.

1. ---We don’t want to wait for our food so we have fast food.

1. ---We don’t want to drive to a movie theater when someone else sets the time for a movie, we can get it on Netflix “on demand.”

1. ---With a click of a button we can get our news or find out who won the ball game instead of waiting for the delivery of the afternoon paper.

I know time and technology moves along and things get faster! However, the idea of instant gratification does not work so well in real estate investing.

Time is your friend when it comes to real estate investing. The old saying goes, “Don’t wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait.” How true! Likewise, time is a friend to real estate investors because often when we make a not so good deal or a marginal deal time heals many wounds in the long run. Real estate investing is forgiving when we make bad deals.

One of the reasons time makes marginal deals work out is because of appreciation and loan pay down (amortization). Hopefully, as time goes by your investment goes up in value (it appreciates). If you have put a tenant in your property they are paying down your mortgage thereby increasing your ownership of the value of the property.

Real estate investing is more like cooking in a crock pot than a microwave. I love a crockpot meal. Put your meal in the crockpot, let it simmer for hours, then come home and have a delicious meal. The food I get out of the crockpot is often much better than the food I can get out of the microwave. The food out of the microwave is much faster but not as good.

In real estate investing, there are very few overnight success stories. Even when it seems like the guest on the podcast was an overnight success, nine times out of ten, they were a twenty year overnight success. We just see the success and the fruit and not the hard work over the many years.

When I read the Bible I am often struck by how long many of the people in the Bible had to wait for God’s promises to come to fruition.

1. ---Abraham and Sarah had to wait many years for a child to be born.
2. ---Joseph had to endure slavery and prison before being elevated.
3. ---Moses and the Israelites had to wander in the wilderness for forty years before coming to the Promised Land and they didn’t even get to go there only their descendants.
4. ---Old Job endured a lengthy time of suffering that ended up teaching him much.
5. ---Jesus prepared for thirty years before beginning his earthly ministry.

All of them waited and experienced God’s best and the living out their purpose but it took time.

In our world, and in real estate investing, maybe waiting is not such a bad thing. Maybe it is in our waiting that we will come to live out our purpose and flourish. Maybe in our waiting we will be changed and that will be the biggest benefit of our waiting.

Life, like real estate, is more like cooking in the crockpot than the microwave.

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

---2 Peter 3:8-9