The Value of Education

Not long ago, I found out about a Real Estate Investing website called Bigger Pockets (.com, of course!). This was also posted on that site's discussions area.

Hello! David J. here again with more of the steps on my journey to financial independence.

Yes - it's been a while since last we met here on the blog. Things are happening and I'm just now catching up a bit.

This post is going to be a bit unpopular on Bigger Pockets because it's about education - Real Estate Investing education. The site as a whole has rather a strong sentiment against paying for education.

To some degree, that's understandable. Real Estate Investing education has rather a bad reputation. It's generally considered VASTLY overpriced and it's also considered to over-promise and under-deliver.

In fact, the thought which inspired me to write this post came from watching part of a Than Merrill ad on TV. He's talking about fixing and flipping which, in the current seller's market, is a bit more challenging than it has been. If that's one's primary - or only - strategy, seeking properties to fit one's strategy is equally challenging, whereas if one knows multiple strategies one can approach a property and be able to determine which strategy, if any, would be most suitable. After all, not every property can be done profitably.

Of course, education is about more than real estate investing. It's about the kind of education none of us gets in the school system: entrepreneurial education, business education (beyond Wall Street, that is) and, of course, financial education.

Of those, financial education is probably the most important.

One can scan these blogs and discussions and find lots of examples of those who are experiencing challenges which could have been avoided thru a modicum of financial education.

Some folks post about not being able to get another mortgage because lenders say they already have too many in their own name.

Some folks post about needing to find funding for their deals because they lack the resources on their own.

Some folks post about deals where the costs have mounted up to a point beyond the profit they calculated from the deal.

Some folks post about being overwhelmed by the accounting and bookkeeping demands of their real estate business.

Some folks post about how a deal went sour and they lost a good chunk of change.

Now, you can learn how to deal with all of these through the experiences themselves and from the experiences of others. Not the fastest or most economical method of learning, but certainly effective over time and there's no up-front expense.

Then again, how much money can you afford to not spend?

"What's that?", you may say. "How can I lose money by not spending it?"

Can you lose $50,000 or more on a deal gone bad? Of course you can! Easily, if you have not yet learned how to avoid it.

Can you make mistakes in the course of a deal that may lead to penalties or even serious charges? Of course you can! Easily, and some of those mistakes can lead to penalties on a par with some felonies.

Can you - and your partners! - lose your property or properties in a lawsuit, even your own and your family's personal possessions like your home, your vehicles, tools, bank accounts, and more? Of course you can! Easily. We unfortunately live in a society where litigation is viewed as a source of windfall profits.

So, the choice to go forward and do-it-yourself without advanced education is a personal choice. It is a serious choice and needs to be considered carefully.

Weigh the risks compared to the benefits:

• Learn to avoid common, simple mistakes and the penalties to which they can lead, some of which can be severe.
• Learn to protect your possessions and assets from lawsuits and liabilities.
• Learn to select the investing strategy appropriate to a property - even if the only appropriate strategy is to move on to the next property - rather than limiting your property choices to those suitable for the strategy(-ies) you know.
• Learn how to make your real estate investing a business which runs without you, even when you're sick or taking a well-earned vacation.
• Learn to make your real estate business profitable and how to keep more of your earnings rather than lose them to taxes thru missed deductions and other financial missteps.
• Learn how to turn your real estate business into an inheritable legacy for your loved ones.

Real Estate Investing Education isn't just about doing deals.

It's about finance, business and entrepreneurship as well. It's about being a well rounded business owner, a successful entrepreneur and a happier leader of your team and head of your family.

If you're interested in education which under-promises and over-delivers, drop me a note privately and we can talk "off-line".

We'll talk again!

Take care - be well!

Much Success!

Won the Lottery? (Part 2)

Learn How to Not Be Broke Again Three Years from Now!

Hello! David J. here again with more of the steps on my journey to financial independence.

When last we met, we started discussing what to do with lottery winnings, a big bonus, profits from a real estate deal, or some other large sudden windfall of cash. Even if you're only starting out with your own savings, these steps can help you protect and grow your savings into income for your retirement.

If you haven't seen the first part of this discussion yet, take a look at that, then continue here. Or, go back and review it if you have seen it, then come back here and we'll finish up.

Today, we'll continue our discussion with Steps 3 and 4.

I am blessed to be connected to a group where financial education is available - education of a calibre about which the average college student can only dream. This is from my learning, not my experience.

I'm going to propose a four(4) step process:
Step 1: Asset Protection
Step 2: Debt Reduction
Step 3: Income Production
Step 4: Wealth Preservation

Note that I am not a licensed financial professional and am NOT authorized or qualified to give financial advice. This is, again, from what I've been learning. Please take it as such.

I may cite numbers over the course of what follows. Please do not take them as either accurate or "gospel". I'm typing this entirely from memory - what I've learned as I understand and remember it.

We resume our discussion at Step 3.

Step 3: Income Production

After Step 2, you should still have the bulk of your new found wealth remaining. Here, we begin to create our new reality with it.

There are many vehicles available for income production. One of them is money lending. Most folks think that's just the province of wealthy bankers. History shows that, traditionally, this is not the case and that one of the ways people build wealth from modest holdings is by "renting out" their money.

It will help here to acquire some small understanding of how banks work in the 21st Century.

Banks don't actually lend out their depositors' money. Instead, the amount of money they have on deposit determines how much they can borrow from "the Fed", usually at a ratio of circa nine(9) to one. That is, for every dollar they have on deposit, they can borrow nine(9) dollars from the Fed. Sometimes, the ratio can be as high as eleven(11) or more to one. So The Fed's money is partially secured. Think of it this way: as a bank's depositor, you make the "down payment" on the loan the banks get so they have money they can lend out. This is the TRUE meaning of, "It takes money to make money."

The Fed charges the banks interest at a very low rate - on the order of 0.25% - relative to what banks charge each other for borrowing ("the prime rate") or what the banks charge to individual consumers who borrow from the bank - circa 4% to 5% for secured loans, and anywhere up to 30%+ for credit cards and other unsecured loans.

The banks borrow from "the Fed" at a very low interest rate, and lend it out to borrowers at much higher interest rates. This is sometimes called "arbitrage".

So, you will want to emulate the bank's model. That is, "arbitrage" your money: lend it out for more interest than you're paying on your combined debt load.

These investments will, therefore, be short-term investments - six(6) months or so, generally not more than twenty-four(24) months, though some loans may go longer.

A premier option for income production is self-directed tax-advantaged accounts like IRAs, 401(k)s and 403(b)s. Genuine self direction allows that you can direct your custodian to invest your funds in any non-prohibited transaction as defined by the U.S. Tax Code - the "I.R.S. Code".

Some examples of these investments would be a sibling's business, a nephew's financial endeavor, an associate's real estate deal (fix and flip, rehab, etc.), and so on.

Note that I specifically did NOT mention stocks or other "risky" investments. Most folks do not consider the stock market to be inordinately risky. These are some of the same folks who lost half or more of their retirement savings in the crash of 2008 / 2009.

Prohibited transactions are generally those which would benefit you personally, directly. This includes your own real estate deals and financial endeavors, those of your spouse or those of your parents, grand-parents, children, grand-children, etc. ... that is, anyone in a direct line of descendency from you or to you.

Your tax attorney, accountant or other financial professionals as well as your custodian should be able to help you avoid prohibited transactions. You may need to shop around for people sufficiently knowledgeable to assist you in these regards.

Money held in accounts without such retrictions CAN be used to invest in vehicles which WILL benefit you personally. So that's an option for lottery winnings and other sudden windfalls.

Something I would advise against is having dealings with anyone who will benefit financially from any transaction you may make even if you lose money on the transaction. Such people make their money by handling those transactions for you and are not motivated to help you make a profit. Apologies to any financial planners, stock brokers, etc. who may feel slighted by those remarks. No personal attack or offense is intended.

Step 4: Wealth Preservation

This where most lottery winners make their mis-steps and end up broke again in short order: they fail to distinguish between short term gains, and long term income and wealth preservation. Many people buy into the notion that, "If I could just get ahead I could stay ahead".

Wealth preservation is not about spending, it's about having your money working for you instead of you working for money.

Really, wealth preservation becomes a product of Income Production. The idea is to have your income-producing assets increase in value to the point that your income stream is assured for as long you can reasonably expect to need it. They should produce income in excess of your needs so their value increases over time in turn producing greater income to keep pace with inflation and your own needs, which may increase as you age and your health requires more and more attention.

It's not my goal here to suggest income producing assets, though one vehicle I've already mentioned in passing - being a private money lender - can be a strong part of any such strategy. Income producing real estate is another example. Among those who have achieved financial independence - the topic of this blog, the most common "denominator" is wealth produced through real estate holdings.

In summary...

Whether you win the lottery, inherit a fortune or sell a fix-and-flip or rehabbed home for a big profit, your wealth strategy cannot begin with "avenging" all the years of deprivation you've felt being a member of the workforce.

Your wealth strategy has to begin with protection, continue through growth and through debt reduction and be anchored in preservation and income production for as long as you need it.

Re-invest your profits to keep the value of your business growing.

We'll talk again soon!

Take care - be well!

Much Success!

Won the Lottery?

Learn How to Not Be Broke Again Three Years from Now!

Hello! David J. here again with more of the steps on my journey to financial independence.

Was just watching a show on Cable called, "The Lottery Changed My Life". This episode featured a Canadian family who won a fairly modest jackpot, $4.5 million.

Like most lottery winners, they first fed their feelings of deprivation by going out and indulging in luxuries like cars, outdoor recreational vehicles like ATVs and such, even a country home on multiple acres.

Something you never hear on these shows, though, is what they did to preserve their "wealth" after first satisfying their needs to no longer feel "deprived". So, I thought I'd fill in here with some suggestions.

Now, of course, I'm not a big lottery winner, and my personal fortune is still "under construction".

I am blessed, however, to be connected to a group where financial education is available - education of a calibre about which the average college student can only dream. So, this is from my learning, not my experience.

I'm going to propose a four(4) step process:
Step 1: Asset Protection
Step 2: Debt Reduction
Step 3: Income Production
Step 4: Wealth Preservation

Note that I am not a licensed financial professional and am NOT authorized or qualified to give financial advice. This is, again, from what I've been learning. Please take it as such.

I may cite numbers over the course of what follows. Please do not take them as either accurate or "gospel". I'm typing this entirely from memory - what I've learned as I understand it.

Step 1: Asset Protection

Upon any large burst of income or any windfall, the first thing to have in place is a plan for asset protection. As soon as you acquire something that someone else may want to take away, you need to put yourself in a position of control without the appearance of possession. That is, if someone wants to try and sue you to gain control of your wealth, you must first have put that wealth out of reach of such attempts.

On paper, you must look like you have nothing of value - nothing worth suing you for.

Control does not require possession. "Control everything, own nothing".

Step 2: Debt Reduction

When we get a sum of money like an inheritance or a bonus or some other payout, one of the first things many folks always want to do is to pay off debt.

Now, that IS a good thing. The trick, however, is to pay DOWN debt, and do it without imposing a sudden big change on your credit position.

By paying down big balances all at once, you actually paint a picture of yourself which, while it may appear to help you in the short term, in the long term may actually hurt your credit profile. Sure, your scores will surge upward, initially. However, they'll gradually slide back down if you stop using your credit and interrupt your history of payments. Your scores may end up being lower than before you acquired your windfall.

What you'll want do first is devise a pay-down plan for your personal unsecured debts like credit cards and personal credit lines. Exclude your home equity line for now - we'll discuss that later, and its a secured debt, anyway.

You'll need a financial calculator. One recommendable option is the official HP 10B-II emulator app for the iPhone, or the HP 10B-II calculator itself or its predecessor, the HP 10B. Actually, any calculator that handles financial calculations should do nicely. You'll be figuring out the payment amounts to pay down or pay off your personal credit accounts over a period of time which you decide.

For each account, calculate the payment amount for the time period you've decided for paying down your personal debts: 24 months (2 years), 36 months (3 years), 60 months (5 years), or whatever you choose. Use the current interest rate on each account, even if the interest rate is variable. At this writing, there is little indication of interest rates changing much in the near term (within five years) - subject to change, of course, since no one can predict the future.

Once you have the monthly payment amount for each account, multiply that times the number of monthly payments you've selected. Total all these numbers for all your accounts. This will be the amount you'll set aside for debt reduction and elimination.

What you want do so is set up all your personal credit accounts so that they get paid automatically every month out of a special account you set up just for that purpose. Actually, you will want two accounts: a money-market or other interest bearing account which pays more than an interest-bearing checking account would, and an interest bearing - or truly free - checking account.

Start the new checking account with the minimum balance to avoid monthly charges (if any) plus the total of a month's payments on your personal credit accounts.

Set up the money-market or other interest bearing account with the total of all the monthly payments, and arrange to have it transfer to the new checking account an amount equal to the total of your monthly personal credit account payments every month. Money-market and other interest bearing accounts usually have a monthly transaction count limit; so, this should work well - one withdrawal per month set up on an automatic transfer to your new checking account. Leave the money in this account solely for the purpose of funding those automatic transfers and making the automatic payments.

Some banks allow you to set up these automatic transfers through your on-line banking. Contact your institution for details if you need them.

That said, I must also say that I don't promote paying cash for some large purchases when credit will do just as well if not better. Remember: money you don't pay out until necessary is money that can work for you earning income.

So, for any new large purchases do the same thing: figure out how soon you want to pay it off, figure the monthly payment amount at that rate, the total number of payments and the total of all those payments. Add that amount to your money-market or other interest bearing account, and set up those monthly payments to be automatically drawn from your new checking account every month. Adjust the monthly transfer from your money-market or other interest bearing account to your new checking account, as needed.

Every month, the interest earned in your money-market or other interest bearing account can be transferred to another account and used to re-invest or fund purchases. This is an early example of income production - your money working for you, instead of you working for money.

The idea here is not to avoid interest, as most consumers might believe. The idea here is to repair and maintain your credit by setting up timely payments and reduce your credit utilization. This will enable you to get lower interest rates on new accounts, or even to reduce the interest rates on existing accounts.

As for home loans and home equity lines, I'm going to promote the same approach: as long as the interest you're paying on those accounts is less than the income you're making (as we'll discuss next), leave those loans in place and include them in your debt reduction plan. Leave their payoff term as is - 15/30 year or whatever, just allow for the automatic monthly payments which will grow your credit standing and repair your credit profile, if needed.

If your equity line's monthly payments are interest only, use your financial calculator to determine a payment which will amortize that line before it renews or resets the next time (not the current period, unless it just renewed/reset).

If your home equity line is a true "balloon" and does not renew or reset, then consider paying it off in full, if possible.

I've intentionally avoided mentioning transferring your debts into business entities for the obvious reason that I believe it is better for you personally to improve and fortify your own credit status so that you may more easily acquire credit for any business entity you may choose to set up.

It's entirely valid to transfer your windfall into one or more business entities - that could be part of your asset protection plan. All you need do, then, is to have that(those) entity(-ies) make your monthly payments for you.

That said, I would recommend you consider transferring your personal residence out of your personal name and into an entity such as a trust. Your legal professional should be able to help you do this. This further reduces your desirability as a lawsuit target. In fact, depending on your unsecured debts, it will probably push your net worth into negative territory.

You shouldn't feel negative about that - remember: the idea is to look as unattractive as possible as a potential lawsuit target.


*Whew*! This is getting a bit long! Let's break here, and continue in the next post!

Look for it in a week or so.

We'll talk again soon!

Take care - be well!

Much Success!

A Return to Blogging

Hello! David J. here again with more of the steps on my journey toward financial independence.

Well! It's been a while since last we met! Let me fill you in on what's been going on...

"Life Happens", it is said, and my life is certainly no different. Over the course of the past year - my last blog post was just about a year ago, I've been continuing to study my real estate investing and entrepreneurial classes, including the weekly study groups held at the office of the local group of investors and entrepreneurs with which I am connected.

Discussing the class material with others taking the same classes has been very helpful and has helped to reinforce both the class material and its relationship to my own life experiences in investing, sparse as they have been to this point.

Personally and professionally, my occupation in IT is actually reinforcing my choice to pursue entrepreneurialism. In fact, it has become abundantly clear that remaining a W2 employee is no longer an option for me. I've become what some folks call, "unemployable".

While I would not promote being financially irresponsible, I could easily see making my career change now, before my new income production systems are ready to "boot up". My current financial commitments, however, do not permit me that choice. So, I will continue my path of work and study while I develop my new income source.

The time to make the break is not yet, but is not far away now! I'm very much looking forward to the day when I can walk into the boss's office and say, "(Boss), I'm sorry man, but I gotta let ya go - you're costing me a fortune!".

That said, sit back, relax and watch for a new post to be published very soon. It's already written, it just needs a few points to be researched and confirmed before I release it to the world.

Sneak preview: The next post is rather long, and it contains information that can be helpful to anyone who suddenly acquires a large income or bonus, an inheritance or even a big lottery jackpot. After all, the Law of Attraction is all about being ready for good things so when they come your way, you'll be ready and they won't have to pass you by!

Thanx for coming back! There's good things coming, and you're welcome to be part of them with me!

We'll talk again soon!

Take care - be well!

Much Success!

Becoming Successful

Hello! David J here again bringing you more of the steps on my journey toward financial independence.

This post is going to be more inspirational than informational because, if you're like me, sometimes we need to find something in the world around us that gives us the impetus to keep going in the face of adversity. When things aren't working the way we'd like we get frustrated and we need something to which we can look to help us see that yes, it is still possible and that we just need to keep going.

Two points we'll cover today:

1. "Fake it 'til you make it"

2. "You'll See It When You Believe It"

Now, the first of those is from the world of learning new life skills, acquiring a new career or a new direction in life. We all start out learning how to do or be something we've never done or been before. We need knowledge and skills which, once acquired, will create our new self, our new experience, our new world.

The second is actually the title of a book by Dr. Wayne Dyer. It seems a little backward compared to "conventional" wisdom, yet it is an immutable truth. We tend to ignore that which runs counter to our beliefs. When we expand what we are willing to accept, we expand our possibilities and a whole new world of exerience and joy will open up to us.

The two tie together when you want to create a real change in your life, especially in the area of what we loosely call "success". However you define success, make it something that is natural for you, that comes easily to you and just fits effortlessly. If you have to force it, it will never feel right to you and your efforts may lead to something less than your true desire.

You'll need to decide for yourself what success means to you - no one can define success for you. Create the definition - in writing, if that helps. Make it real and make sure it fits you naturally, effortlessly.

One way to achieve success is to actually see yourself being successful, whatever success means to you. Make it so real you can actually picture it your mind. See yourself being successful - create your own "picture of success", if visual images have the most meaning to you.

If feelings mean the most to you, then imagine how you would feel being successful. Stand and walk the way you would if you felt truly successful. Sit as you would sit if you felt truly successful. Breathe and walk the way you would if you felt truly successful.

If words and sounds mean the most to you, then speak the way you would if you felt truly successful. Play the music you'd most want to hear as your successful self. Surround yourself with those sounds you'd most want to hear as your successful self.

If you imagine yourself as successful, and really make it real, now your brain has a specific target. It knows what you expect from yourself and it begins to figure out how to make that your reality.

One of the most powerful features of us as beings is our subconcious self. It works all night, even as we sleep.

Try this: as you're settling in to sleep, bring to the front of your conscious mind a specific question to which you seek an answer: something you need to figure out, a problem you need to solve for whatever reason. When you awake in the morning, unless you've had a restless night due to storms going by, children needing attention or other every day things, you will likely discover that you have answer to your question or problem, perhaps even something you might not have considered before.

It may take more than one night, so keep at it. Many things can disturb our sleep and make this less effective, so stick with it. When your mind understands that you REALLY want an answer, it will provide one.

When you act as if you already have the success you desire, your subconcious mind will figure out what you can do to make your reality match your life as you imagine it.

-THAT- is what "fake it 'til you make it" REALLY means: not to deceive yourself or anyone else, but to create in your imagination that which you desire and make it so real - by your actions and the very way you act and carry yourself - that your brain must change your thoughts to make your life match the success you seek.

If you want to BE successful - whatever that means to you - make it real in yourself and, as long as it is something natural for you to be, it will become real in your life.

I listen to and read many successful people in my personal quest to become more than I have been. In this blog, I provide to you the benefit of what I have learned from my success "coaches", my "adopted mentors". This post is, in fact, a combination of Tony Robbins and Dr. Wayne Dyer.

Choose successful people to model and study. Read or listen to their accounts of their lives, what they have learned and how they have changed their lives because of it.

"Success leaves clues", as Tony Robbins says. Study success and learn all you can about it.

Be a life-long learner!

We'll talk again soon!

Take care - be well!

Much Success!

Housing Shortage

Hello! David J here again bringing you more of the steps on my journey toward financial independence.


Well! It's been a while, hasn't it? Hope everyone has been working diligently on their real estate business, studying their classes ... taking those actions that lead us to our goals!

While we've all been busy, something surprising has been happening: the housing market has taken an interesting turn.

See, after the economy went down, almost all but the largest homebuilders went under as well. Thousands and thousands of contractors found themselves idle. Building supply vendors felt it, as well. Some analysts estimate that we're short some 5.5 million housing units from where we need to be just to meet the current demand.

...but, during the time since then, what didn't happen? Homebuyers didn't stop entering the market, did they? Folks were graduating college, looking to move away after school, they even went ahead and started their families while waiting for the housing and home finance market ships to right themselves. Some folks changed jobs or just decided they need a different home for any of many reasons.

Now, the economy is sputtering back to life, and home values are rising slowly. Mortgage lending is still tenuous, as best, but at least some lenders are beginning to "go back into business". Banks are flush with cash to lend, yet lending criteria remain so tight that qualifying for a home loan still remains the holy grail of the 75% of credit holders who are now considered to have "bad" credit (that number was 57% before Springtime of 2009: the banksters did it TO THEMSELVES!)

In this climate, we're seeing something we've not seen for years now: multiple offers on available homes, offers above the asking price, ... Yes! Bidding wars in some places!

The dearth of lending is still keeping home prices supressed by artificially dampening demand. So, the run-away increase in home prices we saw in the years leading up to 2007 haven't materialized yet. People have less cash available for down payments, lay-offs and other challenges have raised issues with peoples' credit, ... in short, the environment is very different from what it was, and yet very different from what it should be.

By rights, the dearth of housing should be pushing prices skyward, yet the weakness in the lending world keeps a lid on demand for both existing and newly built homes.

Some of my Facebook friends have posted that homes they find via the MLS on Realtor.com and other sites are often sold by the time the listings appear on line.

So, homeseekers, if you've also been a job seeker recently you'll need to apply those same networking skills to your home search, just as you did in your job search.

Where can you go to network your way into a new home? Well, there are some options you'll want to consider.

One might be to find the monthly meetings of the local REIA (Real Estate Investor Association) clubs in your area. Investors have been buying bank-owned homes as well as short sales. They've been rehabbing them and putting them back on the market, often without listing them with a broker or agent. The best shot you've got is to find homes before anyone else does and get first crack at making an offer on something that you like, especially if you find it before it gets listed on the MLS.

If you've been following my blog, you may know that the investor group I'm with meets weekly, every Thursday evening and holds a monthly workshop - GREAT opportunity to learn stuff you may not hear anyplace else, and also to network with active real estate investors over lunch. You may even find someone with a home for sale in your target area that no one else has heard about yet!

Speaking of classes, I hooked the laptop up to the big screen TV. Now, I can watch my classes in my recliner with a Pepsi handy and my notebook in my lap. Great stuff!

I'll keep my ear to ground and report back when something good comes along! LOTS of great stuff coming this summer, so we'll be back in touch more often.

We'll talk again soon!

Take care - be well!

Much Success!

Best Job In America: Real Estate Investor

Hello! David J here again bringing you more of the steps on my journey toward financial independence.

I saw an article on Yahoo! recently about the best jobs in America and thought this would be a good way to express what being a real estate investor is all about. It's not a "job", of course, it's a way of life. Still the format seems suitable...

Real Estate Investor

1. Pay Scale: $0 - $300,000+ annually

The money one can make really is unlimited. The only real limit is you and your willingness to do what it takes to succeed.

2. What Do They Do All Day?

An investor's day can be as full as you want or as easy, depending on what needs to be done to achieve your goals at any specific time.

For example, to start your day, you might review various sources of property leads and find any you'd like to visit and analyze that day and then schedule your activities for the day. Then, make some phone calls to attend to the details of deals in progress, maintain contact with your network of fellow investors, title company agents, realtors, and others.

Then, visit the properties you selected earlier, sit down with a notepad and calculator and work the numbers, make decisions about the ones where the numbers look like they add up and decide how to prepare offers and letters of intent to acquire them.

In the late afternoon and evening, you might meet with your accountants and attorneys to discuss the deals you're working on, network some more, have dinner with your contacts, colleagues and friends.

3. How to Get the "Job"

There's no place to interview for this type of a "job", it's really a choice of life style, life course and life goals. If anything, you'll interview yourself to see if you're ready to embrace a paradigm very different from that with which most of us are raised from youth.

By far, the greatest challenge is letting go of one's comfort zone and embracing a new idea of what it means to be an employer rather than an employee, a leader rather than a follower, the one who determines the instructions rather than simply following them.

Only you can decide whether you can be comfortable determining your own income rather than trading your time for dollars, rather than depending on someone else to provide a salary or an hourly wage, rather than depending on someone else to provide work for you to do, supervision and management, a work place, and so on.

4. What Makes It Great?

Real estate investors today are contributors to society at a time when their work is very much needed to preserve and restore the available housing stock, to provide clean, safe, sanitary, affordable housing at a time when borrowers are crippled by credit all but destroyed thru no fault of their own - back in 2009, banks cut credit lines and closed accounts causing credit scores to experience a drop from which they have yet to recover - and crippled by job loss, loss of home equity, loss of retirement account value and economic conditions not seen in this country in almost a century.

Today's real estate investors have had to be creative about borrowing since institutional lending all but stopped. Now, investors can help people recover the value in retirement accounts and achieve returns on their retirement savings that banks, stocks and other options simply can't provide right now.

Real estate investors have been leading the creation of construction and rehab jobs since builders and developers folded up under the pressure of the collapsing economy.

Additionally, by taking foreclosed homes off of lenders' inventories, they're helping the lending environment heal itself and keep banks from failing and from costing the government money when banks fail.

5. What's The Catch?

Wow! That could be a whole series of posts in itself! So, let me summarize...

To start with, with the lending climate the way it is, almost the only available source of financing for real estate deals is private lenders and hard money. So, the investor needs to be not just a transactional analayst and engineer, the investor must be a diplomat, a team builder, a charismatic leader who can attract others to one's efforts to help provide housing where it is needed.

Few of us were taught about money or business at home, and most of us not even in school. So a major challenge is acquiring eduction on the topics surrounding the process of real estate investing.

Another major challenge is that so many less than scrupulous people have tainted the image of the real estate investing profession that one may face a great deal of skepticism from one's neighbors and family. Investors have a reputation as greedy people who take advantage of people in bad situations. This will require you maintain utmost integrity and honesty at all times. Deals must always provide a "win" for everyone involved.

So, there you have it. That's the "job description" for a real estate investor.

Have ya got the guts for it? Do you have "the right stuff"?

We'll talk again soon!

Take care - be well!

Much Success!