You’ve been seriously thinking about investing in real estate for several years but the time never seems right. Today, prices appear to be too high and there isn’t much inventory too choose from. A couple of years ago, the market was uncertain when no one was sure if the recovery had legs. Before that, there was a glut of houses on the market with too few people able to either rent or buy from you. It’s always going to be something.
Probably, you’ve been studying real estate investing from the sidelines. Maybe you even know or at least read about others that did take action to invest. They could have done very well, done middling, or lost all of their investment. It doesn’t matter. Until you take action, you’re only going to be a spectator. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
In hindsight, it turns out that 2006 and 2007 weren’t very good times to invest in real estate. People bought at the peak of the market only to be “in” when the market took the steepest and longest lunge it many decades. But once they got in, many stayed in. Some just hung on to what they bought, others went through foreclosure, many sold for a loss, and a few got out just in time in 2008.
Many of those that took action to get into real estate investing at a bad time are still in it today. Jan and Mike – a couple I’ve known for many years- cobbled together multiple credit cards back in the 1990s to buy and flip their first house. They didn’t have the money to hire contractors to do a major remodel. They learned the DYI approach to flipping took too long to earn them a meaningful profit. However, they stuck with real estate investing by changing strategies.
They became Realtors® so that they could earn a living while staying on top of the real estate market pulse. Mike had honed his construction skills on the DYI project and picked some work doing small remodeling and handyman projects. He became very knowledgeable about all aspects of home construction. When the market tanked around 2008, they were having trouble even making a living as Realtors®. But they found a strong niche market in Texas that was not going through the downturn. Jan and Mike picked up everything to move across country where they prospered through the recession and are still thriving today.
Actually, there are many people today that stuck it out through the recession and are better off for it today. Real estate investing is a business. It takes time to build your own business and there will never be a perfect time to start. When you start today, you can begin building benefits like:
The year 2017 is not another year to sit on the sidelines waiting for a perfect opportunity that will never come. Real estate does appreciate in value over the long term. Today’s advantages include the historically low interest rates, the strong rental market, the ever-shrinking supply of real property, the pent-up desire of people by the millions wanting to own a home in a tight market, and many other real opportunities. The truth is that it’s always good to buy low and you should do your due diligence but the longer you wait, the less likely you are to take the dive to build long term wealth.
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Author bio: Brian Kline has been investing in real estate for more than 35 years and writing about real estate investing for eleven years. He also draws upon 25 plus years of business experience including 12 years as a manager at Boeing Aircraft Company. Brian currently lives at Lake Cushman, Washington. A vacation destination, a few short miles from a national forest in the Olympic Mountains with the Pacific Ocean a couple of miles in the opposite direction.