A new college basketball season has kicked off. I don’t know about you, but I love college basketball and will be spending free time watching games of my favorite teams over the course of the next few months. One of the legends in college basketball is the late John Wooden. The story is told that when the season would begin, he would do something that new members of the team found a little odd: he would spend time teaching players how to correctly put on their socks. One of the freshman players was puzzled by it so he said to Coach Wooden, “Coach, I understand that we need to practice foul shots and defense, but why do we need to spend practice time learning how to put on our socks. I learned how to do that when I was a little boy.” Coach Wooden replied, “Son, you need to know how to correctly put on your socks. If you don’t, then you would get blisters on your feet. Blisters and sores on your feet are going to make you unable to play well. If you don’t play well, that means the whole team does not play well.”
What Coach Wooden was trying to teach the players is that you have got to get the fundamentals down in basketball before you can really be a basketball player and basketball team. The same is true in real estate and real estate note investing. You have to accomplish the fundamentals. There are many folks that enjoy the excitement of HGTV and seeing people flip a house or purchase a home on some tropical island in 30 minutes time. Believe me when I say that reality does not work out that way. There are days if not months before they accomplish their goals. The same is true with the real estate business and real estate note business. There are many steps that must be accomplished before you reach the pinnacle of investing.
As we near the end of this year and begin to think about the goals for another year, I invite you to go back to basics in real estate and note investing. If you are new to real estate or note investing, you might want to simply go through these basics for the very first time. Here are a few basics I would invite you to visit again or for the first time:
- What is my marketing strategy for properties or notes?
- Where do I find the capital to invest?
- What criteria do I use to figure out how much to pay for a property or a note?
- What good things do I do this year and how can I make the coming year even better?
Take time in these remaining weeks of this year to get back to basics. You will be glad you did. You will be a better investor and your business will be better. Best wishes in your real estate pursuits.- RLW