What Does It Take To Be A Professional Investor?

The first rule of thumb when it comes to becoming a professional real estate investor is buy low and sell high. Wow what a break through concept! Lets take a look at what the reality is. Right now as the real estate market is tanking, according to some people, the professional are starting to come in and buy everything up. What are the hobby investors doing? They are panicking and dumping their high priced investments that they bought right before the market tanked.

The professional investors are getting wholesale priced real estate at incredible terms. The hobby investors are giving away their properties at incredible terms, lease options, rent to own, no bank qualifying etc. This isn’t exclusive to real estate…the same thing happens with the stock market and the hobby investors always wonder why they are losing money. The hobby investor waits that the market is going up and looks like a safe risk before jumping in the game. The professional investor makes up the rules to the game and makes money on the follies of those that don’t understand what the rules are.

Buy low and sale high. Why is that concept so difficult to grasp?

To move from hobby investor to professional investor you first need to determine your own personal why. Why you are investing. Why you are willing to learn the game. Why are you willing to risk the little or lot that you have acquired over your life? Once you have determined your why then you need to solidify in your mind that you are going to do whatever it takes to reach your goals, but more importantly that you are going to do it right. Cutting corners is never a good idea especially when you don’t know where the corners are.

From there you need to assess what tools you already possess and what you need to learn and then be determined that you are going to get the investing education that you lack. You can do this in two ways. Trial and error or get some help. Trail and error is a very difficult road to take, trust me I know. It is only a mater of time before you will make a critical error that will end up costing you more than you want to pay. For some, trail and error has cost them everything (house, cars, family etc.).

For your sanity and your families well being work with a mentor or a coach. Start by looking in your local investment club for a mentor. Yes you will have to get off of the easy chair to become a professional investor. If you don’t have confidence in the mentors that may be available look for a real estate investment coach. Make sure that the coach that you get is working the program that they teach and is already successful. There are many programs out there and their focus may not be real estate investing so make sure that they are focused on real estate investing and that they will guarantee a return on investment.

The areas that are critical for a successful real estate investing career are first and foremost do your due diligence. Due diligence includes market analysis (learning what the market is doing, what areas are good for rentals, which are good for rehabs, etc.) and property analysis (learning to run the numbers on what the true costs are of buying a property and what the net will be at the end regardless if it is a rental or a rehab). Then you must understand negotiations (creating win/win agreements), creative financing (using other peoples money to make you money), contracts and offers, property management, and the tax benefits.

If there is one thing that I want you to take away from this article is to develop a team of professionals around you. That team will include real estate specific accountant and attorney. An experienced property manager, real estate agents/brokers and finance people (mortgage brokers, hard money lenders, etc.). Be the dumbest person on your team, meaning work with highly skilled and intelligent people that will increase your investing IQ. If you are the smartest person on your team then it is time that you change the team players because they won’t be able to help you.

If you are thinking to yourself right now that this sounds like too much work then do yourself a favor…stay away from real estate investing because you will lose money. Once you have master these areas then you will understand that professional investors can make money in any market. You will quickly move out of being a hobby investor into becoming a professional investor and allow yourself to reach your goals your reason why. That reason why is why you are doing this in the first place.