7 Traits of Successful Real Estate Investors

Seven Traits of Successful Real Estate Investors
By Larry Goins
Who doesn’t want to make more money? With the exception of a few bank CEOs, not anyone, right? In working with real estate investors for several years as a mentor and trainer, I’ve discovered seven traits that successful investors possess. Don’t panic! You don’t have to be born with these traits to be successful. You do, however, have to be willing to develop them in yourself. To make more money, you have to be successful, right? To be successful, you have to be willing to do what successful people do and work like successful people work.
Without further ramblings, let’s look at the seven traits I’ve identified which successful real estate investors need to acquire and refine to take their real estate investing to the highest level.
1. A “Get ‘R Done” Attitude
Buying a real estate investing course or attending a training seminar is easy. Taking the education out to the streets and doing the deals requires motivation and discipline. As a society, we are programmed to over-analyze, over-complicate, and under-action things. Never does this predicament hold truer than with something that is new to us. A lot of folks call this “paralysis of analysis”. They don’t take into account that fear of failure is sometimes at work here as well.
When you get ready to pick up the phone for the first time and make an offer on a property, don’t focus on everything that could go wrong. Put your mental energy into doing the deal and focus on everything that should go right. You can’t remain inert out of fear of making a mistake. Remember, the worst thing that can happen is that the owner says no to your offer. That’s not the end of the world. You just pick up the phone and make another offer.
But don’t forget to ask the owner or realtor if they have anything else that might be on the market to which they would be receptive to a cash offer today!
If you sit in front of your phone and do nothing, nothing is all that gets done. When you jump outside your comfort zone and start dialing about some properties, deals get done. I totally value investing in your real estate education. I, also, value and appreciate students who get out there and work with what they’ve learned. I know you won’t do everything perfectly when you are just starting out. You are still very much in your learning process. But doing is a big part of learning.
No driver education student ever got there license sitting in a classroom or even behind the demo wheel of a demo driving program. Until you get behind the wheel of a real car on a real road, you aren’t driving. And until you get on the phone with a real property owner, you aren’t investing in real estate.
Why is Nike’s slogan so memorable? Just do it. Making the first move in real estate investing is going to be the hardest. But once you make that move, it becomes easier and easier every time. So successful real estate investors are like Larry the Cable Guy. They get ‘r done!
2. A Willing Mind and a Positive Attitude
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Successful real estate investors are willing to set out on the journey of investing and have a positive attitude that they will succeed. Why? First of all, he who doesn’t try is lost, to loosely quote. Second of all, anyone who thinks they will fail is certainly right!
You have to approach your new real estate investing business with a positive attitude that you will succeed and a willingness to try something new. Your attitude plays almost as big a role in your success as does your mindset and your education. No matter what you want to be successful at, you have to be willing to work at it or no amount of positive attitude will make you successful. And no matter what you think you can do, you won’t be successful unless you are willing to learn and work at it.
Successful real estate investors are open to education and believe in their own ability to be successful. They see an incredible opportunity in real estate investing and set out to be successful at it. Nobody starts anything planning to fail. If you are willing and believe in yourself, and know that I believe in you too, you can be successful at real estate investing.
3. A Desire to Learn.
If you don’t want to learn how to be a successful real estate investor, you won’t be. Successful real estate investors can no more be successful if they don’t believe in themselves than they can if they aren’t willing to learn from the pioneers who have gone before them. I know you can do this. I know you bought the course or requested the free CD or subscribed to my e-course. Now what are you going to do with the incredible opportunity before you?
Successful real estate investors never, ever stop learning. There are many ways to buy and sell real estate and different ways work better for some people than they do for others. Real estate markets change, mortgage availability changes, and your own interests may change. You don’t have to be a master of rehabbing, hard money loans, lease-to-own deals, note buying, and all the other ways that people are making money in real estate. You do have to be a master of the ways that you want to make money in real estate. Stay willing to learn. And don’t just be willing, thirst for the information that is available to you.
4. A Serious Attitude About Your Business
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither was a house. And neither will be your real estate investing business. You have to get up every day and treat your business like a business. My Ultimate Buying and Selling Machine students don’t play at being real estate investors. They don’t print up business cards, hand them out, and wait for the phone to ring. Whether they are working their business full time or part time they maintain a serious attitude about their business.
Successful real estate investors don’t play at buying and selling properties. They might not be doing deals and making offers every day, but every day that they are working at their business they are working at it like they mean it. You can’t be successful if you aren’t taking your business seriously. Like most things in life, you will get as much value out of real estate investing as the effort that you put into it.
To be successful in anything, you have to focus some energy and effort and time into it to reach your goals. You have to treat real estate investing seriously. This doesn’t mean that you have to be in your office forty hours per week. But it does mean that you need to have an office, a dedicated space, for your business. Successful real estate investors treat their business seriously and put all their efforts into it when they are working at it. Remember, this isn’t just another job. This is your career, and your future. Be serious about it.
5. A Consistent Effort
Successful real estate investors work at their business consistently. This doesn’t mean they don’t take vacations, or have jobs, or spend time with their families. It means that when they say they are devoting 20 or 30 or 40 hours a week to their real estate careers, they are doing it consistently. Most things that we take on fail if we don’t work at them continually.
One of my team members has a yard that goes from full shade to full sun as you walk around her home. Growing grass has been a battle for her the entire 12 years she has lived in the house. She has a nice, green yard because she works at it consistently. She mows regularly, she waters when it’s dry, and she re-seeds when bare spots appear. There wasn’t a one stop process that worked for her because different areas or aspects of the yard required different seeds, different care, and different nurturing.
Your real estate investing business is a lot like a yard that needs consistent care. You can’t rehab and lease and wholesale and flip every property the same way. Some properties require a little more work than others. But they all require consistent effort.
You can be a successful real estate investor by doing small things on a consistent basis to ensure that you grow more successful every day. Success isn’t about doing what is necessary only once or twice or even three times. It’s about doing what is necessary consistently. You can be successful by doing things over time to build your business consistently.
6. A Motivated Attitude
I have yet to meet a successful real estate investor who didn’t really care whether or not he or she was successful. It just doesn’t happen. Nobody is successful in this business by accident. Oh, sure. You might luck out and do a deal without having all your ducks in a row. But if you aren’t motivated to be successful, you won’t be successful.
Some days you won’t see any positive results. Some deals will fall apart. Some owners won’t be willing to sell at a price that gives you 70% of ARV. The market may turn or the buyer may lose their financing. That’s okay. Stay motivated. You aren’t ever going to be more successful than you are motivated. It just won’t happen.
It takes time and dedication to see significant results in your real estate investing. If you are feeling a little bit discouraged, take time to motivate yourself by listening to the training materials that got you into real estate investing in the first place. Bookstore shelves are crammed full of motivational books, tapes, CDs, and videos.
We all have off days. Sometimes even I need a little help to stay motivated. However, if you are motivated, the deals and the money will come. Conversely, if you aren’t motivated, nothing much is going to happen.
Successful real estate investors get motivated and stay motivated. You can do it, too.
7. A Humble Attitude
Successful real estate investors are good, humble folks. The more money they are making, the more humble they become. Don’t take my word for it. Look around at a local REIA meeting or one of my boot camps. Nobody knows everything there is to know about real estate investing. Not even me. When you maintain a humble attitude, you remain willing to learn. There is always something more or something new to learn in real estate.
If you aren’t humble, you aren’t open to new ideas and new teachings. When you aren’t open to learning, you aren’t staying on the top of your game. As soon as your game slips, you cease to be successful. It’s funny how that works. Plus, when you aren’t humble you just aren’t very much fun to be around. People like to do business with people who make them feel good about themselves. Even motivated sellers are turned off by investors who talk down to them, or belittle them. Be humble. Maybe humility is as close to Godliness as cleanliness?
Successful real estate investors approach their work day with an air of humility that makes them a pleasure to be around and a pleasure to do business with. I couldn’t have built a successful buying and selling machine in my office if I weren’t humble. And you will find it difficult to build a network of buyers and sellers if you aren’t humble, either.
That’s it. These seven personal attributes are the most important tools in your real estate investing arsenal. Without them, you are paddling backwards in a canoe with a hole the size of a watermelon. But with them, you are well on your way to being a successful real estate investor, too.