When you look at someone’s life on social media, usually you only see their successes. So you might assume that’s all they ever experience. In fact, the opposite is true. Those people who experienced success did so because they experienced failure. The key difference between them and someone who didn’t experience success is that they learned from their failures and moved beyond them.
The same thing is true with us and our real estate investing. We aren’t out here batting 1.00. We’ve done some really dumb stuff. And I would say we’re where we are today BECAUSE of those failures, not in spite of them. We learned so much from each one.
Here’s a sample of some of our most spectacular failures:
-The first flip we purchased, we lost money. We had no method for how to estimate our costs. So we paid too much for the property. Because of that, we created a system for doing this. And the next flip we did we made exactly as much as we expected.
-The first time we tried the BRRR method, we didn’t line up our financing correctly and up front. So after we bought the property, we couldn’t get our money back out of it. So we ended up having to pay monthly on a high interest line of credit for two years until we sold the property. Again, it led us to create a system where we have everything set up going into a property so our plan behaves how we expect.
-The first rental property we ever bought needed a complete sewer line replacement, which cost over $15k. Well…the seller’s disclosure indicated that the main drain had roots in it. We could have done a sewer scope, found the issue, and had the seller correct it (or not buy the property). There we learned how to inspect potential rentals and identify issues before we purchase.
Those are just a handful of the mistakes that made us the investors we are today. We have plenty more. And we will continue to make more and learn from them.
So if you’re out there holding off on buying your first property because you’re worried about making a mistake, let me assure you of this. You will make a mistake. And it’s okay. You need to make the mistake so you learn and grow.
Buy the property. Make the mistake. You can do it!