Real Estate Investing Tactics

I got a great question in an email yesterday. The writer talked about being new to real estate investing and how there is so much information out there that seems to conflict with other information. Then he summed it all up with, "when does all of it click and make sense?"

Great question.

One reason we have such a high drop out rate of people who want to invest in real estate is because of the information overload they face. Twenty years ago it was just the opposite. It was hard to find information on real estate investing. But, now we have books and home study courses and tapes and lectures and seminars.

What's that? I forgot one?

Yes, the Internet. Before Al Gore invented it the new investor didn't face information overload but with the explosion of sites in the last 15 years it can be confusing and nerve wracking.

Why does so much of the information on the Internet seem to conflict with other information?

Because most of it is sales copy. The Internet has become one really big classified ad. Sure there are some sites that work hard to avoid it and I work very hard to make sure our sites are among those but for the most part a new investor is faced with a barrage of sales copy pretending to be learning material.

But, that only addresses part of the emailer's question. Their real question is, "when does all of it click and make sense?"

The human brain is amazing. The normally developed brain takes in everything and tries to fit it all into neat patterns. At a subconscious level it then tries to correlate those patterns into knowledge. Learning is best facilitated by repetition and reinforcement over time for that very reason. You can't learn to be a doctor over night, there is too much for the brain to deal with. But, you can do it over time, with repetition so the brain can find the patterns and assimilate the knowledge.

The same is true for anything else. You can't learn the fundamentals that drive any equity market, real estate is just one, over night. It takes time to assimilate the fundamentals. How much time? That depends on a number of things. How deeply are you immersed in it? How good is the quality of the information bits you are feeding your brain and how consistent is that quality and how is it presented to the brain? All of these affect how fast it will click.

But, if you hang with it and continue to learn and let your brain sort out the bits, it will click.

Then, when it does click and begin to make sense, another amazing thing happens. It will be easier to sort good information coming your way from the bad information.