Yes, folks, I face daily problems landlording my investment properties. That's right; The Real Estate Professor has a plate full of difficulties as he heads into 2016.
- The bookkeeper position is again in flux. QuickBooks statements are not all accurate.
- Two tenants with whom I have a judgment and possession appealed the decision, putting the mediation into the middle of 2016.
- I have filed in court for judgment and possession with three other tenants.
- I was turned down for a large blanket mortgage
- My desk and office look like the Aegean Stables after a cyclone.
- My email box is screaming "Full" and the mail is piling up.
There's a lot more, but I'll stop here.
Successful investors must address the never-ending stream of problems that are part of investing and life. But the first focus and time allotment must be on the opportunities in the marketplace that fit into your long-term plan and niches.
Solving problems must never be the prime objective. Yes, it must be done-like taking out the garbage and cutting the grass, but the priority must be on the opportunities in the constantly changing marketplace. The allotment of time spent on developing opportunities must be consistently significant. This takes a constant awareness in understanding and exploiting today's and the future's market supply and demand inequalities. This takes discipline. This takes character. This takes fortitude. During a busy day chopping out four hours to visit banks-or see properties for sale-or going to a library or Starbucks to write a 2016 plan-seems counterintuitive when faced with a swirling merry-go-round of glue-covered problems that attach themselves to your mind and your time. They crowd out the opportunities. Only with discipline and an awareness of where your time is spent (a To-Do List - a journal - studying the 2016 plan - are all good reminders) and where it must be spent.
The opportunities are NOT in the business's internal problems. Market opportunities don't exist within your organization. Opportunities are OUTSIDE - hiding in the cluttered marketplace - your organization produces costs - the opportunities produce income. The focus must be outside your office - outside your daily grind - outside your W2 job if you have one.
Let's go over the basics:
- Neither results nor opportunities exist within the business. Both exist outside.
- Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.
- Resources, to produce results, must be allotted to opportunities rather than to problems.
- Concentration of resources within a good niche (more demand than supply) produces the best economic results.
I have an assignment for you. Write up a 2016 plan - make it as specific as possible - full of small standards and goals - but focus primarily on the opportunities, not the problems. It's a challenge to write a plan while the problems in the cages screech and bang, wanting to be fed. Solve them you must, but they are at the end of your time and energy.