BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 20: 20 Deadly Mistakes For Real Estate Investors to Avoid

Episode Date: May 30, 2013

While it’s unlikely that you are going to make a mistake in real estate that will kill you – there is a much higher chance that you’ll make a mistake that’s going to kill your chance of finding success. To help you fight the good fight and avoid those mistakes – you’ll definitely want to listen to today’s episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast with Josh and Brandon. You might be a seasoned investor or you might be just starting out – but the 20 mistakes listed in this podcast are real, common, and deadly if not properly addressed, so be sure to listen to today’s show. Read the transcript for Show 20 with Josh & Brandon here In This Show, We Cover: The best ways to get free education How to overcome analysis paralysis Exit strategies you should be using as a backup How to establish your marketing machine How to best protect yourself from being sued The best ways to find great contractors The worst way to screen for tenants Plus MUCH more… Links from the Show: Google Voice The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide The Ultimate Beginner’s Podcast The 21 Best Books for Real Estate Investors Danny Johnson Podcast The Keyword Alert System The New Member Introduction forum Meetup.com “What I Did Wrong as a Landlord” post J Scott’s Negotiating article Books Mentioned in the Show The E-Myth by Michael Gerber If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff Tweetable Topics You’re never going to know everything. (Tweet This!) The math never lies. Stick with the math and don’t fudge the numbers. (Tweet This!) You wouldn’t drive from Canada to Peru without a map. You need a plan – just knowing it’s south isn’t good enough. (Tweet This!) Don’t talk so much. Just listen. (Tweet This!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast. Show 20. Yeah, boy. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others

who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I am Joshua Dorkin, and this is the Bigger Pockets podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is show 20. It's a big milestone, isn't it, Brandon Turner, my famous and fabulous co-host? Number 20 is good.

I like the introduction. You sounded like what they called, like a three-ring circus leader. Are you calling me a clown? Yeah, you know, it was ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Good job. Children of all sizes. Yes. or something. Well, listen, I know I'm super excited and I know you are as well. Not only is this

the big 20, but we just crossed a pretty cool milestone. We are now the number one rated podcast on iTunes. And that's pretty awesome. Not only do we have the most ratings, but we have the most five-star ratings. It's awesome. I'm honored. For real estate, that is. Oh, that is for real estate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not being Dave Ramsey. That's not happening.

Dave, we're coming for you. Dave, you're invited to join us on the Bigger Pockets podcast. That is true. If anybody knows Dave Ramsey, we could use an introduction. There you go. Make it happen. Make it happen. But yeah, so this is episode 20.

I'm very excited that we made it this far, and you and I haven't choked each other. But not too much anyway. Yeah. Well, so for today we've got kind of an extra special show, I think, I hope. Hopefully we live up to our own. Hopefully we do a good job, guys. So for today, we've put together a show for our 20th, dubbed the 20 deadly mistakes to avoid as a real estate investor. Now, Brandon, deadly mistakes, man, seems a little hyperbole, seems a little bold.

What's going on here? Not at all. I mean, people die all the time investing in it. I'm just kidding. It actually probably does happen and we are sorry. Yes, sorry. You're out. Be careful.

Yeah, scoping out a house and the house falls on you. I'm sure people die. This could turn into a public service announcement. This is not a laughing matter. It is not. No, this is the 20 deadly mistakes because I like sensational headlines. So you can't just say 20 mistakes. Today is the 20 deadly mistakes to avoid as a real estate investor.

And there are 20, and this is not that long of a show. So we're going to jump right into it after our... After a quick tip. Quick tip. And for today's quick tip, Brandon Turner, what is today's quick tip as your eyes glaze over and fear, unprepared to share the quick tip? All right, the quick tip for today is a set up a Google Voice number because Google Voice is free and your tenants will stop calling.

you, they will call your Google Voice number. When I switched to that, like three years ago, my life transformed. That's a great tip. Yeah. Great tip. I'll tell you what. The cool thing about a Google Voice number is you could set it to forward or redirect

to any phone number that you want. And the other really, really cool thing is if you have annoying people that are bothering you and calling you at that number and you don't want them to call anymore, you can actually block them. And the cool thing about that is when they call, it'll sound like the line is dead. I've actually used this number of friends for people who I didn't know that. Yes, who I really don't want to talk to.

And, you know, I'm dead to them, I guess. That's funny. As, yeah, so. I knew you could do, you can do like a special voicemail for each person. I don't know that. Yeah, so I have one set up for, like, my friend when he called, it says, like, Johnson's morgue. And that's all it says.

So, yeah, you can have fun with your tenants that way, too. How many can you set up, do you know? I don't know, but I think a lot. Oh, that's pretty awesome. Yeah, so anyway. Get a Google Voice, guys. Yep. So with that, let's a quick tip.

That was a good quick tip. So, you know, if I do say so myself, we've had a few guests actually say that. That's why I suddenly popped in my head to say that. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle, active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes, 10% below market value, in the best markets across the country without making real estate your second job.

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Let's jump in, dude. We're ready go. We've got 20 deadly mistakes, and why don't we hop right in with number one? Mistake number one is not being educated. Now, certainly we're not ripping on people who are not educated. We are saying it is a grave and deadly mistake to go in and pick up and jump in and buy property, get into real estate without having any kind of background, any kind of focus in real estate. I will tell you, I did that.

And it was a deadly mistake. It is actually the reason that bigger pockets exist today because I made that mistake and found myself in a lot of trouble. And I don't want other people to do the same thing. So, Brandon, let's talk about that. I mean, we created this UBG thing, didn't we? We did. The UBG Ultimate Beginners Guide, which we also look.

did the Ultimate Beginners podcast, which was show number 11. The last time we had a no-guest episode of the podcast. So yeah, you can actually listen to that right now. Well, wait until this episode's done. That's BiggerPockets.com slash show 11. Correct. And the ultimate beginners guide is biggerpockets.com slash UBG or BiggerPockets.com slash real-estate-estate-investing.

Either one gets there. Sorry. Continue. No, it's good. So anyway, yeah, it's totally free. Check it out. If you haven't read through the UBG, definitely read through the UBG, UBG. So, I mean, there's a lot of ways you can learn too. You're obviously doing one of them

right now, the podcast, a very, very fun way to learn real estate. But also, there's a ton of books. There are forums. The Bigger Pockets Forum is probably like the best thing on the internet. So it's like one above Google and Wikipedia, just in terms of coolness. So jump on there, ask questions and get answers. That really is an awesome place. You know, I used to be afraid of forums. Like, I didn't know what they were. when I was younger. And I thought there were some weird, creepy nerd thing. You know, people would have like a Star Wars forum and that's what it was.

I didn't realize all it was was a community. I mean, Facebook is like a forum. I mean, that's all, it generally is people talk. They ask questions. They give answers. So anyway, jump on, start learning. Yeah, yeah. And really quick, let me, before we move on to the next one, you know, being educated,

you know, reading, books, library, forums, podcasts. I mean, there's plenty of different ways. Learning also potentially means finding mentors, finding people to help you out. It doesn't necessarily mean programs or gurus, although that does work for some people. Certainly not what I personally like to endorse, but again, it does work for some people. So whatever works for you works for you. Just be careful how you spend your money, guys. I mean, you know, education is one thing, but spending the money that you might put into your deals on somebody's boot camp or

something else when you can get the same information free or for far less. Just be aware that there's other options. So anyway, oh, real quick. Real quick, yeah. We're going to put a link in the show notes to an article that I put out a, I don't know, a month ago called like the 21 best books for real estate investors. I totally recommend if you guys are looking for good books to read. Go to the show notes, biggerpockets.com slash show 20, and I will have a link to that article

there. It's always about you, Brandon. always about me. So speaking of me, number two, waiting too long. Mistake number two, waiting too long because you don't know enough. This actually wasn't, this wasn't one of my mistakes because I jumped in like you did, maybe without enough education. But this is a very common thing that a lot of our listeners are probably facing right now. They don't know enough. They don't think they know enough, so they don't want to jump in. So yeah. Yeah. And that's, I mean, I think that's definitely one of, one of the common mistakes that we tend to see. It's the,

fear, right? I don't know enough. What if I make a mistake? You know, it's got to be perfect. I've got to know everything. And, you know, the bottom line is, as any of the old pros on Bigger Pockets will tell you or any old pro at your local RIA or anywhere else, you're never going to know everything. It's impossible. There's too much to know. So make sure you're prepared certainly. But you don't want to just keep delaying the inevitable because you feel like you're not ready. Part of preparing and making sure you do know enough is having a business plan, having some kind of plan to kind of get the ball moving and make sure, you know,

you have the basics, you want to put things in writing. I think if you do that, if you write things down and plan, you'll know when you're ready because your plan will be at the point where you can start executing. Do you think that's a fair way of putting it? I do, yeah. It's a fine balance to strike, but it's important. to not get caught up in the I don't know enough. Yeah.

And you will make mistakes, right? Yes, we will. And you learn from them and you grow. And I always push, like I always say, just push forward until you're stopped. And then, you know, you might get 50% of one deal, 75% of the next one. Like, you might get 50% to closing a deal. And then 75% and then 99%. And you're going to encounter problems.

But every time you'll get a little bit closer until you're actually making deals happen. And I would just say the only thing is, you know, you don't want to go in blind, A. And B, you know, you certainly want to mitigate the. those losses by spending time asking questions. If you don't know anything, again, the forums are a great place or just, again, at your local RIA. Which brings us to the next deadly mistake, which is do not, don't speculate, don't follow the herd. Don't just jump in and blindly buy because people are telling you to buy because the market's hot and hyped.

don't just go and buy long distance, buy out of state, because somebody says, hey, it's a good opportunity to buy out of state. You know, you want to make sure that you know the fundamental difference, first of all, between speculation and investing. Essentially, if you're speculating, you're gambling. You're just taking a bet. You're just saying, hey, I'm going to jump in. I'm going to buy something because I know or I think or I've got a feeling in my bones

that things are going to go up because everyone else is saying it's going to. up, real estate's going to go up forever. That's just sheer speculation. You know, when market's hot and it's going to be hot forever. Investing is buying based upon fundamentals, making sure you have a solid education, and maybe Wikipedia or one of these other sites will debate my definitions. But, yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of how I see the difference between the two. Would you say that's a fair assessment?

Yeah, definitely. I think there's a quote that I like. I think Warren Buffett said it is, buy whenever one's selling and sell when everyone's buying. And that's the opposite of the herd mentality. You know, when everyone's buying, you just want to start buying because it's fun. And, you know, we see that in a lot of markets today. A lot of markets are really overheated and people are, they're like, I got to buy something.

I got to buy something. Well, maybe you missed it in that market. I don't know. I mean, or maybe there's an area of that market that's not hot right now. So something to keep in mind. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

And, yeah, just be careful. be careful and make sure that you you've got a plan and you understand what you're getting yourself into and ultimately don't buy just because you think you have to or jump in because you're going to lose on an opportunity or lose a deal out of fear of losing possible gains it's better that you don't jump in than you do jump in and you're and and you're doing so for the wrong reason yeah i agree Cool. So all right, number four, mistake number four, falling in love with the deal. All the seasoned investors that are listening, I'm sure they're all nodding their head right now in the car going, yeah, I've done that. So you fall in love with the deal, and for some reason, you get attached to it emotionally. I mean, that happens to me a lot. And I think it's natural. You're an emotional guy, Brad. I am an emotional guy, you know. You get attached to these things. It's like, oh, the house is so pretty. And, you know, I once put probably an extra 20 or 30 grand into a house that I should. should not have probably done. I should have kept it simple and cheap. And I just kept putting money in because I love the house so much and I just kept thinking it was worth it. And in the end, I broke even on that house. And I thought, man, I mean... Well, you're lucky. I am lucky. Yeah. I mean,

I could have, yeah, it could have gotten a lot worse. But, you know, I didn't make a profit for all the work I put in. And even though I spent a whole lot more time and money, because I fell in love with it. So don't do it. And there are ways to help yourself avoid falling in love with deals. And and those include things like having to find specific criteria. Define criteria. Yeah. Exactly. The math.

The math. The math doesn't lie. I think we say this all the time. Stick with the math. Don't fudge with the numbers. Just have your criteria. You know exactly what you want. You're not going to get as emotional then.

Absolutely. Absolutely. If you know what your limits are, stick to them no matter what and that's it I mean that you know if if you say

well if it only goes for you know I'm only going to bid it up another thousand well that thousand suddenly is 510 20 50 and you're suddenly in a lot of trouble so don't fall in love with a deal number five

having one exit strategy and I've told this story a number of times in different blog posts, but one of my very first flips, I jumped into it back when the market was, you know, I think it was 2008, and it wasn't quite falling yet. And I bought a flip and I couldn't sell it because the market started falling. And I had no exit strategy other than sell it. And I learned a lot of lessons in that one. And I ended up, you know, discovering creative finance that way, but it was a terrible experience. So ever since then, I've learned to have two, three, four exit strategies. So very important. That is. And we, we cover the

that, I believe it's chapter eight, I think it's the last chapter of the Ultimate Beginners Guide. So, definitely check that out. There's some good information. Maybe it's seven, I don't know, but it's in there. And certainly a lot of information. I mean, you know, you can

sell retail, sell wholesale to investors, refi, do seller financing lease options. I mean, there's all sorts of exit strategies, and if you're aware of them, you have a solid understanding of them, one exit strategy doesn't work, you know, look at the next and look at the next and look at the next and maybe you do one for a little bit or go to the next or whatever. But as long as you have options

available to you, and you do have options available to you, you just may not understand them or know what they are. Knowing what they are is half the battle. Yeah. The more you know. Nice. Well, just a touch on that real quick too is, you know, when I buy a property now, one of my requirements for any flip I do, and this doesn't have to be your rule, but if I find a flip that I want to do, it has to cash flow if I were to refinance it. Like, I don't want a property that my, that won't cash flow. I want to be able to turn it into a rental if I have to. And that's always my first, my exit, my exit strategy if I can't flip it. So anyway, yeah, I don't know if that works for everyone, but around here it does. So anyway, let's move on to

number six. Number six, buying just because it's cheap. And that is, that is a killer mistake that I think that's probably one of the worst mistakes that I hear about the most from people who don't have a background in real estate. You'll hear them say, hey, you know, here I go again. You ready? Houses in Detroit. Poor Detroit, man. The mayor of Detroit is going to pick my backside. I mean, I am beaten up on that city.

But houses in Detroit are really cheap. You know, you can buy a house for a couple thousand bucks. it might even cash flow. Does that mean it's a good deal? Well, I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of factors, right? Is Detroit a growing city or is it a dying city? Is the area you're in losing jobs or gaining jobs?

You know, cheap properties don't necessarily mean good opportunities. In particular, I'm going to focus on things like war zones, which is kind of like a term for saying, you know, dangerous, bad neighborhoods that have crime and troubles. Do you want to invest in tougher areas just because they're less expensive? As a new investor in particular, I would say you certainly want to stay away from those because there's a lot that comes along with it. Things like higher eviction rates. Screening tenants is a lot more difficult finding qualified people, crime, other problems that come along with it, stolen.

vandalism. I mean, I've dealt with it all. And I definitely think that those are areas that you definitely want to wait to explore until you become more of a sophisticated investor. And ultimately, the big question is, are you going to spend more time, energy, money, resources, managing, cleaning up after bed tenants, or does it ultimately become worthwhile? that extra cash flow that you think is there may vanish due to evictions and other problems.

Yeah, definitely. Number seven, not having a plan and just winging it. So I always use this analogy. I'm sure you've heard it before that you wouldn't probably drive from like Canada to Peru without like a GPS or a map because you're bound to take wrong turns. I mean, just knowing that a South isn't good enough. So in real estate, I think you got to have a plan. It doesn't have to be a formal business plan.

And those are fine, but it doesn't have to be. But just having a, I want to buy properties between 100 and 150,000 that cash flow at $200 per month per unit in this town using this money. I mean, that's a plan. And I think it's important that people have those. And that goes back to what we talked about way earlier is not getting emotionally attached. Because when you have a plan, it's a whole lot easier to stay on that plan. And then if you do get off track, it's easy to get back on again. Yeah.

And I think on that really quickly. I think it's not only about having a plan. I think I'm going to raise you one here. I think it's about having a plan, writing that plan, and revisiting that plan. Yeah. Because if you come back and you look at it periodically, and that goes with goals as well, you know, that's one way that you can hold yourself accountable to that specific plan. Yeah.

I have a plan I wrote down in 2007, I think, was the very first before. I bought anything, I think. and I still look at it every few months I pull it up at Georgia just kind of to see where I'm at on it and I've definitely deviated a little bit but generally speaking I'm pretty much right on where I wanted to be

so it's fun to do that and it kind of reminds me of the principles and how I learned so yeah sounds good well that brings us to number eight which is not investing in your marketing you know

a lot of people will jump into real estate investing. Frankly, people jump in as real estate agents. I knew a lot of people back when I was an agent who were new and thought, hey, I can be an agent. Really, what's the cost? The cost is of the test. They don't realize you got to spend money marketing to get those clients. And I think the same applies in real estate investing. If you're having difficulty, finding deals, you probably aren't marketing enough. You know, there's so many different ways to market. And, you know, things like direct mail, online advertising, door knocking, just one-on-one networking is really a form of advertising, right?

You know, going to your local RIA and handing out cards and letting people know about, you know, who you are and what you're looking for, that kind of stuff, setting up websites. We talked, Danny Johnson talked a lot about marketing. That was two podcasts ago, episode 18. And I know Danny is really, he's really. He's got a good marketing machine going on right now. I mean, almost every guest we've had that's been a pretty common theme is everyone market has really good marketing.

But I especially like Danny's discussion on marketing. So anyway, podcast, biggerpockets.com slash show 18 has a lot of good ideas there. And one more thing I want to bring up that you said website. I want to add Google ads and Facebook ads. I'm a huge fan of them. I don't do a ton yet with them, but I really, really like the idea behind them. and I want to do more and more with them. And I'm actually taking a course right now,

like an online course on how to do Facebook ads. So I'm a huge fan. Let's not forget the Bigger Pockets Marketplace. That's true. Bigger Pockets Marketplace. And, yeah, I'm going to actually be listing a couple things there in the coming week. So everybody go check it out. BiggerPockets.com slash Marketplace.

And do check out Brannon's deals. Yeah, there you go. All right. Mistake number nine is not networking with local. local investors. And, you know, this is, this is, again, one of those things that, you know, I think there's, there's a lot of myths out there in the real estate world, in the investing world. You'll hear a lot of, you'll hear it from some of the gurus, and you'll hear it just permeate

through the community, like, oh, I can't, you know, I can't interact with those guys because, you know, they're my competition. I got to be careful. I got to get, blah, and, you know, people get all, like, weird and funny. about connecting with local investors. Yes, these guys are certainly your competition, but they can also be a fantastic resource, and they can be the people that you sell your deals to

or find your deals from. So you have to know your local market. You have to know your local investors. You know, sharing contacts, referrals, helping people out with good contractors and just gathering and getting together. And I guess, Brandon, there are various ways to invest local, to find local people both online and at local meetings.

So maybe you can kind of take the lead on those. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously bigger pockets. I mean, with over 100 and what, 20,000 people now, there's most likely people in your town. So I would start there definitely. the keyword alert system on Bigger Pockets is probably one of my favorite ways because basically you set up an alert for like I have one set up for Washington because I'm in Washington. I also have one set up for Aberdeen because I'm near Aberdeen and I have one for Olympia.

And anytime a new member joins Bigger Pockets, you know, they usually write a little introduction. And so if you're a new member and you haven't left an introduction, go do it right now. You know, pause this, go leave an introduction. But they leave an introduction to say, hey, I'm from Olympia and I'm getting into real estate. all of a sudden I get an email saying, hey, John from Olympia just introduced himself. So that's a huge area. Meetups, bigger pockets. We actually do meetups once in a while.

Some are official, some are unofficial. It doesn't matter. I mean, just people get together to talk real estate. And meetup.com is a phenomenal place to find lots of local meetups as well. Yep, for sure. So definitely those are some of the best ways that I know of. Rias. Oh, yeah, Rias.

I don't have a Ria in my town, which I should start one. We talked to Anne Bellamy about that on her podcast a little bit. about starting them. So I was going to say just on Rias, you know, a lot of people might, I'm not a fan of many of the Rias because I think a lot of them are all about kind of hyping and upselling people.

But the value that comes, even at those Rios, comes in that local networking. You know, linking up and sitting down or standing up and hanging out with local investors, there is a ton of value in that. So even if you're not loving

your local meetup because it's all about the hype and the salesmanship and all that nonsense. You may still want to go just for that networking component that comes with it, which brings us, and I don't know this transition is, there's really no transition here, but we'll just jump to number 10 anyway. And what is mistake number 10, Brandon? This one is one that hits home. It is not hiring the right lawyer or accountant when you first start out. And when you're starting out, You're probably don't have a lot of money and you're trying to cut, you know, cut expenses or whatever. You're like, oh, I can, you know, set up my own stuff or I don't need to talk to an accountant, a lawyer, whatever. I did that when I started.

And the first few years, I kind of just tried to hack it out myself. That was not a good idea because then when I did, I went to my lawyer and I handed him to stack of paper like a foot high and said, I need you to clean this up for me. Yeah. Let's not go there. Yeah. you know, one of the things that happens is people get sued. I mean, you as a landlord or flipper, I mean, you know, is really anything, any occupation of sorts in the investing space,

you want to be protected and having appropriate legal counsel is definitely going to be important. And on the accounting side, you know, you want to know what you can write off, what your expenses are. I mean, we're all doing this, you know, real estate investing because, you know, we're trying to make money. Well, you know, an accountant's going to be able to tell you how best to deal with, you know, your gains and taxes and all that stuff. And it's super important.

So definitely make sure you jump out and hire the right people. Really quickly, if you are listening, this is the Bigger Pockets podcast, show 20. And you can follow any of our show notes at not any of our show notes, but those show notes for this. particular show. That's biggerpockets.com slash show 20. Let's jump right into number 11. Not hiring the right contractors. I can tell you that I have not hired the correct contractors on many, many occasions.

I'm not happy about not hiring the right contractors. It is a horrible experience when you get stuck with a bad contractor. you can find yourself in an in an in anordinate amount of trouble and you can find yourself costing yourself a lot of money. So not hiring the right contractors is definitely a mistake. How Brandon can we go out and find good contractors? I know one of our guests, Mr. Jay Scott, has shared, I think, one of the best tips for this in a previous podcast. He did. Jay Scott had the suggestion for me that I love. He said, well, not for me. He said it all over the place, but it affected me a lot. He said, to find a good contractor, go to Home Depot at 6 a.m. on a weekday. And the guys that are there, the guys surrounding the pro desk, like, those are the guys you want to talk to. They're the ones that aren't sleeping until noon. They're there getting their materials at 6 a.m. They're working early. They're working hard. They're not shown up at 10 because they forgot something. I love that idea. And, you know, if you guys, if you guys haven't checked it out yet, that's he talks about that in the book on flipping houses, which was a book that Bigger Pockets released,

written by Jay Scott. Honestly, one of the best books I've ever read, like in general, but obviously the best flipping book I've ever read, really, really, really solid. And then he also wrote that comes with it, the book on estimating rehab costs. So if you guys haven't got that yet, definitely, definitely, definitely go pick up a copy. You can get it at biggerpockets.com slash flipping book. So it's on Amazon, too. It's on Amazon too.

But yeah, support the team and pick up a copy, maybe pick up a copy for your brother and mom too. There you go, Brandon. Nicely done. All right, cool.

Let me extend on that really, really quickly. People, I think a lot of newer investors are often tempted to hire the cheapest guy. And, you know, I think you definitely want to make sure that you're not just shooting

for that cheap guy. you know, it doesn't mean the cheapest guys is not the right guy, but don't just hire them because they're the low-bitter, because oftentimes the low-bitter will be somebody who's not going to be the right guy for you. I always notice, well, I always notice that there's like three levels of contractors. You know, there's really, really cheap guys. And then there's kind of guys in the middle. And then there's guys that do, you know, the $100,000 kitchens.

Like, I don't want the $100,000 kitchen in my rental. But I don't want the guy that's going to come in and work for, you know, $6 an hour and a pack a cigarette either. Like there's a, there's a guy in the middle there, and that's who you want to find. So, um, definitely, uh, aim for that. Do they, do they work for cigarettes up in Washington, Brandon? They probably do. I don't know. I don't hire those guys anymore. Anymore. I go for the medium guys now. All right. Yeah. All right. So number, number 12, not doing routine inspections. Now this one, I told a story in a blog post a couple months ago called what I did wrong as a landlord, and I'll link to that in the show notes. But basically, I had this rental property.

A lady moved in. I think she had five kids when she moved in, or four kids she said she had when she moved in, two-bedroom house. And then she had a baby. She got another kid somehow from a relative. And her sister moved in with seven kids. And somehow I ended up with 15 to 20 kids on average during the day. We're hanging out in the 700-square-foot two-bedroom house. Nice. Yeah. And-day care. Yeah, it was basically a daycare that most of them, most of lived there majority of the time. It was bad. And I just kind of like left that house alone. I didn't really look at it very often because it was kind of out of the way. And I didn't inspect it very often. So had I known that that was all going on, had I done more inspections on it, I mean, if I set my

manager over there every few months, I would have been fine. But instead, we had $5,000 worth of fees when they moved out. I mean, to fix it up, took $5,000. I lost two months of rent, I think, on it. And it was just a mess. It was a disaster to deal. with. I mean, there was color crann from about four foot down around every single wall in that house. So, yeah. So anyway, do routine inspections, trust me. Nice. And I think, you know, the routine inspections is a great, are a great way to train your tenants. It's also useful. Tenants often don't like to report problems and they can get worse. So if you do those routine inspections, you can learn about them. Really quickly, you mentioned you would tell

your manager to go in. And I don't believe that we have this on our list of 20, but I think it's important to mention briefly that hiring a property manager is a serious to do. And you certainly want to know and understand how to best hire a manager. We've got a ton of articles about it on the Bigger Pockets blog. But staying on top of your managers is potentially a killer mistake if you're not doing that. I know I've personally experienced a ton of strife

because of hiring the wrong manager, having them at a long distance overseeing properties that I personally couldn't inspect. They weren't inspecting and led to a lot of problems, many evictions.

And, you know, so make sure you keep an eye on your managers, stay on top of them. You know, as a new investor, I think it's a big mistake to necessarily trust that a manager is going to do everything. It'd be great if they did. But trust but verify, I think, is a safe way to go.

What do you think? I agree. A thousand percent. So I definitely, it reminds me of the book, the E myth, which a lot of our podcast guests recommended. And so I went and read it. And, you know, I thought it was good. And one of the things that stood out to me a lot in that book was he said a lot of people hire a manager or they hire their first employer.

whatever, and all of a sudden things start get easier on them. And so they just kind of let go and they let that manager run with things. And then all of a sudden their business, a few months later, just starts crashing. It's because you can't just let somebody take over and back up all the way. You really got to, you got to hold on to them. And like you said, manage. So how's the blog coming along, Brandon? The blog? Yeah, the Bigger Pocket's Blog. I'm just making sure that everything's going along smoothly. Oh, yes. The Bigger Pocket's blog is going well now that you're checking in and you're managing your manager of that blog. Good job, Josh.

Thank you. Thank you. I didn't know where you're going with that, so that's good. All right. People love to call real estate passive income, which is interesting because most of the investors I know are very busy. Busy finding deals, busy managing teams, busy worrying they pick the wrong market. Rent to retirement flips that model. They help investors buy turnkey new construction homes, often 10% below market value in top rental

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If you own a rental property, don't assume you're covered. Have NREG review your insurance with someone who gets investing at NREG.com slash BP pod. That's N-R-E-I-G.com slash B-P pod. Ah, with that, let's go on to number 13. I think we're on 13, yeah, not listening to the needs of the other party. Now, this could be whether you're buying or selling it, but if you're doing it, but if you're dealing with somebody else in the situation. And you really got to listen to what they really, like, want internally. I mean, like, they may say they want the highest price for their property,

but a lot of times it's really not that. Sometimes they want convenience or sometimes they just want to be hugged, you know? I mean, not literally, but they just want to be walked through the thing. And if you can care and if you can find out what really matters to them, what's their motivation? Like I said, buyer or seller, if you can listen to them, don't talk so much, just listen. I think it's important. Yeah. And we've heard that on many of the podcasts. I know that there's a great article and maybe we can dig it up for the show notes that Jay Scott, who we mentioned previously, wrote about negotiation.

Yeah. That's a really good article. I link to it all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, it really, it's all about hearing, hearing the other side, you know, understanding where they're coming from. You know, for example, if it's, you know, you're doing a probate deal, you know, what do these guys really need? What, you know, why do they have to get rid of the property? You know, what can you do to help serve them?

You know, pressuring people in certain situations is going to be completely counterproductive. But, you know, being there for them and giving them support and being. helpful. You know, we're not, we see ourselves as real estate investors, not psychologists or psychiatrists. Some need psychiatrists, but a lot of getting deals is about relating to other people. And if you can do that and shut your mouth and let them talk and kind of, you know, help work with them and solve their problems, you're going to get more deals. Yep. I agree. I concur. That's a good one. All right. Let's jump to 14. Letting tenants run the show.

That is definitely a mistake that many, many landlords tend to make. There's a lot of burned out landlords out there. You know, you want to train your tenants from the beginning. You want to have rules, policies, guidelines, and, you know, stick to them. Essentially, you know, if you set up the rules and then you start to bend them, you know, your tenants are going to learn and they're going to take advantage of you. So, you know, making sure that you have an established set of policies, you know, whether it comes to paying your rent or maintenance, repairs, you name it,

and holding your tenants accountable to those things, you're going to protect yourself, you're going to protect your investment, and you're going to minimize problems, late rent, evictions, things like that. Plus, do you remember that book, the kid's book, if you give a mouse a cookie? I do. I actually read that to my kids probably once every couple weeks. Nice. I think that's probably one of the best business books ever written. If you give a mouse a cookie, they're going to ask for a glass of milk,

and then they're going to ask for this and this. I mean, if you let people get away with something little, they're just going to keep asking for it. And I find that with tenants all the time. If I waive a late fee, I'm guaranteeing that next month they're probably going to be late again. And if I accept, you know, a rat or a mouse, you know, like a, you know, a pet rat or something, they're going to have a dog the next week. It's like if you give them even a little bit, it's not that you have to be mean.

You just have to be strict, you know, fair, but strict. And it's huge. So not that I'm calling my tenants' mouses with cookies, but, you know. Do you just want a cookie, Brandon? I'm a, anybody who knows me knows that I'm a terrible chocolate chip cookie addict. It's really bad. Yeah, that makes two of us. Yeah.

So if anybody wants to say, oh, if Glenn Schwarm is listening, you can send me chocolate chip cookies next time. Yes, the brownies were awesome, Glenn. They were great. But we'll take cookies. All right. Number 15. Not knowing your market. This kind of relates back to what we talked about earlier with the problem with some people jumping in a turnkey.

Not there's anything wrong with turnkey, but it's not knowing a market. If you don't know your market, you're going to have a problem. I mean, even in my town, there are areas that I would love to understand. invest in and there's areas that I would never invest in, even though the prices are almost identical. It's because I know the, I know the neighborhoods really, really well. I have a very small community and I know every street. I know which street I would invest in, which I wouldn't. So if you're new, I mean, go drive around, walk around, talk, meet the neighbors. I actually love, that's one of my favorite things I do in the summer is go pick a neighborhood and just walk

up and down the streets and talk with everyone who's outside, mowing their lawn and, you know, having dinner. You learn so much about a neighborhood by that doing that. Nice. Yeah, we had a, we had a realtor in town here. What was that, what's that scooter call that, you know, you'd lean back and or you lean forward and it moves. Remember what the segways? Oh, yeah. I was like, what are you talking about? Yeah. So this guy, this guy is the Segway realtor. I'd never seen anyone else do this. And so what this guy did was he, he went out, bought a Segway and he'd go, you know, whenever he went to meetings, you know, to see houses, he would be stroll, strolling around in his segue

and he got to meet everybody in the neighborhood and he got to become known as the segue guy and he was always helpful and you know we all got to know him right but you know I'm not saying go out and get a segue though if anyone wants to send me one I still haven't gotten a vibe on

that would be awesome. They are fun. Oh no, there you go. You don't have to show off Brian. You know. But yeah, walking a neighborhood is so important and knowing where you're you know you got to know that inside and out. You want to know, I say for a new investor, go out and look at 100 houses. You know, there's a lot of us, we all kind of say the same thing, right? Go out and look at 100

houses in your neighborhood. Every open house, every for rent, every for sale, you know, know, know the inventory in your market because, you know, that's going to benefit you as a buyer. It's going to benefit you as a seller knowing what's out there. So if you've got that market cold, you know, you could, you know, a listing is going to come up. on and you'll know instantly, you may not even have to walk in. I mean, oftentimes experienced investors will see a house. They're going to say, all right, this house is going to be, you know, 576. And literally they're going to have it within, you know, five, five bucks. They're going to have the listing price. Okay, I'm exaggerating. But, you know, they're going to get really

darn close because, you know, they know that market so well. And when they see something that's overpriced, obviously, they know what's up. But if they catch something that's underpriced, they instantly know and they can attack. They could jump in and put in a good offer. So knowing your market is so, so key. Very good. You know, I can't stop thinking about the Segway. I was thinking the Segway Realtor, I thought that's such a good idea. Like, this is kind of random. But I just, like, what a great marketing thing. You're like, yeah, yeah, the Segway guy. I once had this idea where I wanted to do, when I was kind of doing maintenance and stuff, I wanted to be the limo maintenance guy. I thought, wouldn't that just be clever to have a bright, you know, hot pink

limo and that was your like maintenance car, you know? You want a hot pink limo? Well, now I'm wondering could I get a limo and like put we buy houses signs all over it and it's the we buy houses limo? You know, I don't know. Anyway, random but I just think that's a cool idea.

All right, number 16, moving on. Somebody's going to steal that idea for me now. If you do send me a picture. Yeah, I want a picture of the hot pink limo. Yes. Yeah, all right. Number 16, not screening your tenants good enough. So a lot of landlords, a lot of them just trust their gut. I was at a meeting a couple years ago and the guy was like, oh, I don't do a screening. I just shaped their hand and if they have

a good handshake, I know they're going to be a good tenant. That was his theory. Oh, terrible. I mean, I think terrible. I don't know. I don't do it. Maybe it's perfect. I don't know. But I mean, don't trust your gut. You got to screen. You got to figure out what their income looks like. And I recommend three times the monthly rent. So if the rent's a thousand, they got to make $3,000. Look for past evictions, their job, their job history, how much they make, how long they made it for. Landlord references are probably one of the biggest things. And yeah, and don't discriminate. That's bad.

So understand the laws. Understand the rules. Fair housing. Yeah, a lot of people will unknowingly make discriminatory remarks or put ads with discriminatory comments in them. You know, the laws are kind of, I mean, I don't even think you can advertise, you know, perfect house for children because suddenly you're now discriminating against families without children. I mean, the laws are really hardcore, I guess is a fair way of saying it. So you certainly want to have a good understanding of it. And actually, on screening, you know, we, we being Brandon, of course.

I think I collaborate a little bit on that. You did on that. Quite a bit. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Back to reality here. Yes.

So we wrote this really, really in-depth, ultimate guide to screening tenants, where we literally, we talked about everything that you can say, that you can't say. It's got a lot of rules, tips, hints for screening tenants. You can find that at biggerpockets.com slash tenant screening. and that's really valuable for new and experienced landlords alike to just kind of get refreshers or new information on screening rules and regs, so to speak. Let's jump on to 17 here, which we kind of hinted on before, hiring high-priced trainers versus or taking really expensive courses versus working with local mentors.

I think one of the big issues comes down to level of commitment. If you're committed, it doesn't really matter what you do. It doesn't matter what path you take. If you are truly, truly committed, you're going to be fine. It's the uncommitted guys. And those guys go out and they think, okay, of course, is going to make me successful or it's going to make me, you know, yeah, I'm going to be rich overnight or whatever.

You know, that doesn't happen. If you're not committed, this is a bad, this is, you know, this is not a single battle. It's a war, right? Building your investment business takes a lot of time. There's a lot of battles. And, you know, you've got to go through a lot to become successful. It doesn't happen instantly. So, you know, those guys who can.

succeed with a program could probably succeed without a program. Those who couldn't with, couldn't without. Courses certainly might teach you something. Not every class or trainer is evil as some people think that I believe. That is not true. But at Bigger Pockets, we really want to encourage people to learn as much as they can from free and low-cost sources. You know, there's information has been democratized.

Okay. I really believe that. I think that was one of my big reasons for building out the site was, can we democratize the information that's out there for real estate investors? And I think we have. I mean, the amount of content on bigger pockets that is 100% free is astounding. You could spend many years reading and you'll never get through it all and you'll never stop learning.

But let's quickly jump back to the local mentor versus taking a course. I encourage anybody who's like, hey, I need a member. mentor, should I pay this guy who's got this national mentorship? I say, you know what? No, I say you should go to your local RIA or go to bigger pockets or find somewhere else. Find that local guy who's successful in your market, who's been around, who's been doing it, who can help you out. Because that guy has, first he has that local knowledge, which is so important, which we talked about. And secondly, he's got the experience, but that local knowledge. I mean, I think that almost trumps everything. What do you think? Yeah, I think it's huge. I mean, I learned a lot from my

mentor. I have a guy who lives here in town. I started painting houses for him originally and slowly started investing. And I learned a lot about the local area, what works here and what doesn't here. And he's also just become one of my, I mean, I've wholesale properties to him. I've remodeled houses for him. He's bought in properties from me. I bought in properties from him. I mean, we just kind of worked together and it works really, really well. It's a good relationship. So definitely local mentors is kind of the way to go. And if you don't have a local mentor, if you really can't find one, I really want to encourage people again.

I know I'm harping on this today. But the forums are like a gigantic mentor. I mean, it's like, what does a mentor do you? Ask them questions. They answer questions. They might analyze a deal for you. They say, hey, this is not a good idea. Don't do this.

Brandon, this is stupid. And then it's exactly what the forums do. Just ask questions. I mean, there's so many people on there willing to help. and people ask, it's free, and people ask one question and then they disappear. It's like, I mean, just, yeah, treat bigger pockets like a mentor. Yeah, come on, commit. I agree, I agree, and I'm going to jump in.

And, you know, my goal, our goal with the show was not like, hey, let's hype up bigger pockets. Like, honestly, it was not. But, you know, the forums, I can't tell you, I've been doing this for over eight years now. I cannot tell you how many thousands and thousands and thousands of people that I've met through the forums and how many people I've seen just, you know, they needed help. They asked a question. They followed up and they asked more questions and they didn't stop, right? They kept going.

And, you know, many of these guys, I think, Brandon, I think even you, you jumped on. You might have even, you know, gotten a lot of your start from just, you know, the forums and the blogs. I mean, it's, don't be afraid to ask questions. There are no stupid questions, and that's one of the things that a lot of people fear, whether it's on our site or again or elsewhere, you can't mess up by asking a question. You're never going to ask a wrong question because, you know, the most experienced, sophisticated investors have all had those same questions at some point in their career. Now, certainly, if you're not doing your homework, you know, you might, you know, people might

hey listen before you ask a hundred questions go and do a little reading go do your homework and then come in you know if you couldn't find the answer or there's some specifics you know ask in more detail or deals or things like that but don't be afraid to ask questions ever ever

wise I thank you should we go to number 18 that was that was 17 okay yeah 18 treating treating your business like a hobby Not good. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Buying real estate is not a hobby. Buying real estate is definitely a business. You want to run it like one. We've talked about things like business planning. We've talked about things like jumping in blindly. You know, you want to set up systems. You want to set up processes. You know, if you've listened to the podcast and heard some of the successful guys that we've had on,

These guys have gone from, hey, I'm going to buy one house and rehab it or I'm going to buy a house and buy and hold it or wholesale it or whatever. And to I've got a team of six people and we're doing 12 houses at once. That doesn't just happen because they're smarter than you are. That happens because they've developed systems. They've developed processes. They've put together manuals, rules, guidelines, things like that. They've run their business like a business. And, you know, the key is really trying to systematize and work on your business versus in your business.

And I think that's something that I know you love to harp on. I do. It's another one of those e-myth references. So the book, The E-myth, he talks all about that, is stop working in your business and work on your business. Take care of the whole process, automate what you can. and that's a thing Jay Scott talks a lot about and his podcast was automating and letting other people manage the things that you don't want to do

or you don't have the time to do. So that's how you scale a business. Number 19, let's go on there, how about, assuming that what works in one market works in another. And now I know this happens on bigger pockets probably quite a bit. If somebody like me, I might talk about how I'm buying a duplex

and doing this or that. And then somebody says, well, I'm going to do that too. Well, they're in L.A. and their duplex, you know, it just doesn't work out there. And what works in L.A., they would never work out in my market. And so there is some specifics with markets that you really have to understand. And that just comes back to having local mentors and having guys that are near you. It's good to ask some questions, too, because they understand it. So definitely, definitely do what you can with that.

Nice. Yeah, no, I think that about covers it. Yeah. One size does not fit all. Correct. Yes. Well, Brandon. Well, Josh. Yeah, yeah, man.

What's up? How you doing? Why don't we go to number 20? Okay. Let's close this thing up. Yes. So number 20 is not sticking with it. And, you know, if you don't hustle, if you don't work, if you don't,

stick it through, you're not going to get anywhere. And that's true for not only real estate. I mean, that's just kind of a rule of life, I think. You need to work through the hard times. You need to work through the downs and the ups to kind of find your success and to find true success. And we see it, look, we see it on the site all the time.

You'll see people who are like, oh, my God, I'm so excited. I'm going to be a real estate investor. This is awesome. I love it. I love it. and I'm gone. You know, like a week later, you know, they'd ask five questions and they're like, man, this is hard. It's not everything that it's been hyped up to.

And, you know, and they're like, I'm not going to do it. And those guys are not going to make it. So, you know, you've got to stick it out. And this is why we ask the question on every podcast. What sets those apart? We being Brandon, of course, what sets those apart who succeed from those who come and go quickly because I think it is so important for us to get different perspectives on that. You know, the most common answer I think that we get is those who make it are the ones who are

most determined. They work hard and blood, sweat and tears. You know, they definitely, you know, you've got to hustle. You've got to work hard. And if you do, you will find success. so um yeah definitely yeah that pretty much it i guess uh maybe we should wrap this thing up you know um we really really want to encourage everyone i just to get connected with other people on bp because bigger pockets is okay like a gym membership you know curves uh i think you attend

that josh that would be a gym membership for ladies bernan thank you though you're welcome And I frankly have not gone to my gym membership. They've all gone to waste over the years. So it's probably not a good connection. No, okay, so Curves is a really, really successful. I know a girl who lost like 250 pounds. She looks amazing today. And she was a friend of my sisters growing up.

And she said the reason she lost all that weight is because Curves is not about the actual, like, it's not like their diet is any better than any other diet or their exercise is burning more calories. It's because Curves created a community. You go there and you work out with people that are your friends and you work out together and you encourage each other. And I love that. I mean, like that community, that's what Bigger Pockets is. Yeah, we've got a community. We do.

And it works. I mean, it really, really works. I have seen so many successful people come through our community. You are one of the many, many success stories, I think, of the Bigger Pockets community. You guys remember that hair club for Ben commercial. I'm not just the owner. I'm also a customer, and the guy flips up his weave or something. What was his name like Sye Sprilling or something from like you?

I wasn't even born at all. Born back in the day. But yeah, so, you know, we are, we're here to help every, you know, we want people to be successful and we want people to help each other. And I think we've built, I think, what is hands down the best community in the world of real estate investing. I know you've got a couple tips, many of which we've covered before, but let's quickly rehash them before we bounce out of here. Yeah, I mean, really just, like I said before, introduce yourself into the forums if you haven't yet. It's the best way to start getting connected with the community. Set up keyword alerts, stuff you want to know about.

which is biggerpockets.com slash alerts if you're logged in. Ask questions on the forums, ask them on blogs, and send colleague requests, go to BiggerPockets meetups, just get to know people. It's really, really important. We want you to succeed. We really, really do. Join us on Facebook.

We have a lot of conversations there. So cool. Well, that about does it, doesn't it, Josh? That does about do it. All right. Well, Brandon. We don't have the typical four questions at the end, we don't have the typical

and if you were to ask me I wouldn't be able to answer and I know it'd be too hard for you but listen thank you guys for listening this this was our 20th show hopefully you enjoyed it hopefully you found

some value in it and if so and you haven't listened to our other shows please go back and check them out there's some great stuff it's not just Brandon and I bloviating for an hour here but I want to thank everybody for listening.

Again, this is BiggerPockets podcast show 20. You can find the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash show 20. Beyond that, I want to thank again everybody for listening. Everybody who has left us reviews and ratings, if you haven't, we, again, would love more. even though we are now the top rated show on iTunes. Yes, that was pretty pretty. It's a cool milestone, right? It is a cool milestone.

And then beyond that, listen, jump on the site, ask questions, we're here to help. Share your deals. Share your successes. You know, check us out on Facebook. Facebook.com slash bigger pockets. YouTube, YouTube.com slash bigger pockets. Twitter, Twitter.com slash bigger pockets. And, you know, thank you so much again.

I think we're done. So I am your host, Joshua Dorkin, signing off until episode 21. See you later. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Simplifying Real Estate for Investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hike, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com.

Your home for real estate investing online. Thank you all for listening to the BiggerPockets. Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calicoe content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only.

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