Walking Down the Street Naked

“The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself…That is the moment you might be starting to get it right.” – Neil Gaiman

This article is my attempt to get things right…

Over the past 4 months I’ve written a lot about mindset; asking lots of questions, choosing a path, and deciding to take action, which honestly has been an attempt to self-motivate and validate the actions I’ve been taking so far.

One of my goals for 2017 was to buy a multi-family property, to which I’ve been looking at hundreds of properties….and analyzing, and analyzing, and analyzing, and then analyzing some more. Many would call this stage analysis paralysis, as it seems like as soon as I find a property that I think would work, something happens to where I decide not to make an offer: a “better deal” comes along, the ROI isn’t good enough, it’s not in a good area of town, somebody else makes an offer, I don’t think I can get financing, someone tells me the market is soft, etc., etc. I’m beginning to get frustrated with the whole process. All I want to do is reach my goal and buy a multi-family property, but I haven’t gotten there yet, and we’re now in the last quarter of the year. The clock is running…

I recently spoke at a Veteran Education Series meetup that a friend of mine started here in Denver, CO. The topic was Real Estate Investing 101. The goal was to get back to the basics and discuss the fundamentals of investing. We discussed basic terminology, we talked about the advantages of using leverage and how that will boost your ROI, we talked about the risks of buying with all cash, we did an analysis of a single-family rental property, and we talked about scalability. My big plug was use leverage to boost your ROI, keep a cash reserve, and ensure you can scale to reduce your risk; all things my mentors have taught me.

So, what did I go and do?

I went and made an all-cash offer on a single-family home, site unseen, in a market that I know nothing about and I had never looked at before. And…it would have used most of my cash that I have been holding in reserve.  

What???!!!

Why in the world would I do that?

The simple answer is that I’m hungry. I wanted to keep to my own advice of taking action. I really want to buy another property soon. But, I’m now reflecting on the fact that I tried to do it all wrong. I went against everything that I have been preaching…just to do another deal.

In the most recent Bigger Pockets podcast, Grant Cardone said “You never look at real estate when you are hungry. You want to be full, so your sensory and perceptions are working. Once you look at enough stuff that you don’t want, and you finally find that right girl, that right guy, you’re gonna get that ding….that feeling. You gotta look at a lot of products before you get that ding.”

The good news is that the deal fell through and I didn’t end up buying the property that I had made the all-cash offer on. And I now understand where I went wrong and what I need to do to get back on the path that I was originally headed down.

This is a great lesson. Taking action is absolutely necessary and is a key to success, but making reckless decisions in a bubble and taking action for the sake of taking action, with the wrong intentions and for the wrong reasons, is just as bad as not taking any action at all.

Be smart. Get that ding!

Written by Stuart Grazier