The Best Intentions

Are you really a real estate investor?

My goals usually involve significant outcomes which are given traditional project management type dates for achievement. This is then translated into tasks for completion. The best method I have found for maximizing my time is to be focused like a laser on what I want. Then I take the very next 3 tasks to complete every day. Before you know it, you’ve got progress. The project management of holding other people accountable for their work & deadlines is formidable. It’s like herding cats in 3D. Any method I can find that I believe is a more efficient or better way to do something or get something done is worth consideration.

If you are like minded, you may want to check out my new system after it’s launched. Since we’re now in the midst of hurricane season, I hesitate to state that something will be done by a certain date when “acts of God” may be involved. That little clause in most contracts has saved many a party who was accountable to me. Last year was particularly trying because of complete changes in virtually every area of my life, with what seems in hindsight to have been dealt with by my having to do the thinking for all. Everybody is dealing with constant change. Unfortunately, because our time as humans is limited, we really do have to choose what we want out of our life. Your time is literally your life. You can’t do everything or be everything. So you have to choose the most important according to your values. Hopefully you are able to locate great teachers & mentors.

These days the prognosticators state that people don’t want to have to think about anything to make a decision. There’s too much research, thinking, understanding & acting involved for most people. Since my business is literally thinking & making decisions constantly, I have more than 30 years of investment transactions & project management to draw upon, which is why things may appear to be easy. It’s not. However, it does become like a sixth-sense ability to handle the challenges that occur. It’s expertise.

A potential way to multiply the time you have would be to add yourself to my networking lists of buyers, sellers, owners, etc. This is a very different real estate market.

Did You Know …

That from 1972 until 2008 it probably made more financial sense to rent than to own your own home in the US. Since 2008 it has been more financially beneficial to own. A real estate property in 2012 is worth 11% more than in 1981 AND you can own it for 63% less than in 1981. (Using average home price. Source: HUD Historical Data)

In 2011, 30% of all houses purchased didn’t utilize mortgage financing? They were purchased with cash. (Source: NAR 2012 Investment & Vacation Home Buyers)

 

Federal Interloping

One must be aware of all the relationships among the US Treasury, the GSEs & the Federal Reserve Bank. Due to the recent changes placing additional charges on borrowers in the residential real estate market for those in judicial foreclosure states does this imply an unequal treatment under the law? Does being a GSE or a congressionally created entity give immunity? This is your government competing with private business on an unequal playing field. Are private businesses (lenders) being held to a different standard?

New Year – New Market

We are currently experiencing major disruptions in all things real estate related, nationally as well as in both Florida & Arizona as we begin 2013. (And more of the same in 2014.) It remains to be seen whether the government’s legislative & executive branch actions taken over the past 5 years will produce different results or more of the same resulting in a lingering malaise. The interactions between laws, regulations & reality in banking, finance & real estate are increasingly looking to me like re-arranging the chairs. It’s work for somebody. But it makes my work increasingly difficult (as other small business people can relate) as a result of not wanting to spend entire days doing nothing but busy work. At some point, real work must be done. That means bringing more chairs (small businesses) into the game. Those who think that everything in life is of a finite amount (as in zero sum game) will continue to rearrange the chairs with no understanding of why things are not changing for the better fast enough.

If you’re into economics, I would recommend George Gilder’s book, POWER & KNOWLEDGE. It’s the explanation that people can feel but can’t put into words. Here they are. I’d recommend that every person running for public office read this book. By the way, I think we are getting more of a “lingering malaise.”

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