make you even more frustrated!!! (Been there, done that, have scars to prove it!)
Seriously, though, if you are taking a vacation week to do this, that’s fine…go for it. Believe it or not, anything you accomplish during that week will put you ahead.
Resist the impulse to quit your job. You may still have things to learn…you may need to change your focus a little bit…and any number of other things. Quitting work would put undue stress on you. If you read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” you will notice that Kiyosaki finally had to quit his job because he was steadily and consistently earning more money from investing than he was in working for Xerox.
THAT is when you make that decision…when the money you are earning from REI is more than your net from your job, and it is consistently more.
Why can’t I find a house?!!? Need encouragement! - Posted by SteveA (FL)
Posted by SteveA (FL) on June 05, 2000 at 08:33:59:
Ok, so I’m getting discouraged. I’ve been reading this stuff for 6 months and only made 2 offers. I’ve read CS, RLG, been on a mini boot camp, joined the local REIA, run ad’s, put out some cards, sent over 100 cards and letters, work with a good REALTOR, BUT I STILL CAN’T FIND HOUSES TO MAKE OFFERS ON!!! What am I doing wrong? I’m educated. I have common sense. I see how this is supposed to work. I’m definitely motivated. Arrrgggghhhh!!!
I live in a County of around 50,000 people (my city is appx. 10,000), 30 miles North of a city over 1,000,000 people. All the guru’s say to “make lot’s of offers” but I’m focusing on rehabs and they all say that 95% of their rehab deals come from Realtors. I’ve been looking for months and if I find 2 junker homes listed with Realtors in a month I think I’m lucky! I’ve thought more than once that I should work on other areas (L/O’s, etc.) but then I read or hear that you should FOCUS on one method and become an expert in that area and rehabs was my original goal so I’m sticking with it.
In addition…It’s SO EXTREMELY hard after reading pages and pages of success letters and listening to motivating tapes, etc., NOT to quit my job so I can do this FULL-TIME, too! Time is definitely a factor. I’m putting in about 10 hours a week at it now. I’m really confident that if I could devote full time that I could make it work and work well, but I’m making good money at my JOB and I have a family, so I have to get a few deals under my belt before I can even think of doing that. Wouldn’t yall (yes, I was raised in the South) agree?
MLM approach, or, my favorite word is “Next”…(kinda long) - Posted by George(OH)
Posted by George(OH) on June 06, 2000 at 07:37:26:
I used to be involved in network marketing (MLM); companies like Amway, Avon, etc. During training, they would tell us that when we were out prospecting, the idea was NOT to go out and look for people that were interested in joining the company. That would be too tiring, too time consuming, and NO fun.
Instead, what we were trained to do was to DISQUALIFY the people that were NOT interested. Moving through groups of people and determing that they were not going to be good at the business AS QUICKLY AND PAINLESSLY as possible, so that we could go on to the next group of prospects.
Once I realized this paradigm shift, my recruiting became much more efficient, and did not seem so much like work. I also gained a tremendous sense of power. Now when I spoke to prospects, it wasn’t me being desperate to find a prospect. I was like a human resources exec at IBM, scrutinizing applicants for a high paying job. Next became my favorite word.
Using this approach with REI, do you see how much easier it is to sift through the scores of unmotivated sellers (= uninterested prospects)? Flip the script on them! Let next become your favorite word!
Steve,
I see one problem right outa the gate.
You are looking for “houses” not “Sellers”.
You need to concentrate your marketing on sellers not houses.
You will find when you change to this mode of thinking, you will find a few motivated sellers, and out of that batch, some of them may have a home that you can buy and make a profit with.
In reading your posts in the past, I take it you are in the Amelia Island area just north of Jacksonville. This is my hunch about what your problem is (and it is just a hunch). You are working too small a market area. You may want to consider expanding to cover some more populated areas.
As an example, I will tell you a little of what I do. I live in the metro Orlando area, population 1 million+ . I actually live in a suburb about 10 miles north of Orlando. The population of the actual city I live in is about 35,000 people. If all I did was focus on my immediate area of 35,000 people, I would struggle for deals myself. Maybe 3 or 4 a month with some potential might pop up, if I got lucky, and 30 other investors will be competing for those. Instead, I focus on a 2 1/2 county area (about a 25 mile radius from my home) and by doing this I have far more properties come across my desk than I could ever handle.
You might consider doing something similar. I hope that helps.
I am having the same problem. This is not advice, because I don’t know any better than you. But what I am trying to remember from Rich Dad, Poor Dad is that we are not operating on the left side of the quadrant. In Business there are no guarantees. You can work very hard and get nothing. Because we have spent so much time on the left side, we expect to get rewarded for our results because after all we have worked hard. I did apprentice with a small video shop while in grad school. It gave me an appreciation for doing a lot of good work and the market says No. The flip side is sometime out of the blue you will hit paydirt. This doesn’t happened on the left side often, other than the lottery. My mentor had 2 businesses fail before he made it. The key is to keep trying, and keep innovating, and keep trying, and… well you get the picture. I hope to read your first success story soon…but not before mine. Hee-Hee
Posted by SteveA (FL) on June 05, 2000 at 11:58:34:
That’s what I thought might be a problem, too. I want to try really hard though to stay within 20 or so miles of my home for now. That would encompas parts of 2 other counties, too. Right now, 3 or 4 a month would be a lot to me with working FT. My goal for the year was only 1, maybe 2.
I think I’m going to take a week off later this month and treat it like a job and work on RE 8-10 hours a day for that week. That should give me a real boost. Not having more time is one of the most frustrating problems.