This ability to apply creative techniques to the particulars of a given transaction is a key ingredient to successful real estate investing.
The "big guys" have been doing this for decades--perhaps from time immemorial. No one in the upper echelons of investing puts their own money on the line. It is always OPM ("other people's money") that makes the macro world of real property enterprise go around. This insight has filtered slowly to the rest of us down on Main Street.
It is only in the last quarter century that these insider strategies and techniques have become accessible to the "little guy" in full force. High time! No one need have a monopoly on creativity. These techniques can be learned--and it is this will to learn and apply creative measures
that can lift the "little guy" out of the rut of a self-imposed incarceration of negative conditioning and limited vision.
PROFESSIONALISM. What is required in successful real estate investing is the same thing that is required of any business venture: a profit-and-loss mentality, attention to the bottom line, reading the "small
print" in every lease, every document, and every contract involved. If you are willing to keep score, then you can play the game. Records must be kept, taxes paid, the balance sheet maintained. There is no
magic wand. It takes keen business sense. And if you don't have it, then learn it, or get someone on your team who knows it inside and out. There is more to fishing than pulling in the big ones. You have to know
where to fish and when, what bait to use, what equipment to put to work, and how to clean those slimy critters after you get them on shore. And you have to have a fishing license. It's all a conspiracy by the fateful forces of the capitalistic system--but if you know how to play the game of professionalism, you will win.
