The Most Important Six Inches In The World!

Kim and I are headed to Tampa tomorrow to attend Pete Fortunato’s Acquisitions seminar.  Pete is THE BEST creative deal structurer we’ve ever met.  This will be the twelfth or thirteenth time we’ve taken this course!

This raised a question from a fellow real estate investor: Why do you attend so many real estate investing seminars?  You’re already successful.  Don’t you think seminars are just a big waste of time and money?

Learning is NEVER a waste of time or money – especially if you’re learning from GREAT been-there-and-done-that investors. 

For example, last month a fella called with a landlording issue.  He (let’s call him “Tom”) bought his daughter a home some years back.  She had moved out two years ago.  Because Tom owed a lot more on the house than it was worth, he couldn’t sell it, so he decided to turn it into a rental.

Despite absolutely NO training, Tom – with a wave of a magic wand – became a landlord.  After all, he was a pretty smart guy – so what could possibly go wrong?  

Without realizing it, Tom signed up for the most expensive, time-consuming seminar there is: The seminar of hard knocks!  Both groups of tenants he chose raked him over the coals.  Each couple made lots of promises and pulled at his heartstrings.  In the end, none of their promises were kept, they failed to pay their rent, and they left his property a disgusting, damaged, trashed-out mess!

At wits’ end, Tom called and practically begged me to manage his property.  He just wanted to chew his arm off and get away.

When we got together, I explained to Tom that he didn’t have a tenant problem – he had a landlord problem!  Because he’d never taken a single landlording course, he was making every mistake in the book.  As part of our agreement, I required Tom to look over my shoulder as I marketed and filled his property.    

We put the property on the market this past Saturday and leased it yesterday to a GREAT tenant who will pay on time and take good care of the home.  Tom was amazed.  He used words like “genius.” 

Y’all know me and know that I’m anything but.  (I can picture Terrah Whitlock, who’s like my right hand, nodding her head up and down and saying, “Ain’t that the truth!”)  I explained to Tom that the only difference between him and me is that I had attended a ton of landlording seminars over the years, and then put what I learned to work!  Tom agreed that based on what he’d learned, if he were to rent a property again, he’d do it 100 times better. 

Please remember that the six inches between your ears is the most important six inches in the world!  Learning is a great and profitable thing!