Finding I.D.E.A.L. properties is a numbers game. Many people step up to the plate expecting to hit a home run in the investment game their first time at bat. They quickly become discouraged and either settle for marginal properties which give them little joy and/or profit at the cost of much time, expense and pain; or they just quit and try something else. PATIENCE is your most valuable personal attribute if you can cultivate it.
Acquiring the right properties should be a long term objective toward which the erstwhile fledgling capitalist steadily plods on his quest. My first year I built one house. I sold it and with the money, bought 3 more which I rented and later sold, carrying back the mortgages. I liked my mortgage income so much that I tried my hand at buying 2nd mortgages from a mortgage company. Sadly, I discovered how mortgage investments can be wiped out by a declining market, foreclosure, bankruptcy or property deterioration.
I lost twenty years of work in a few short months because I was impatient. Years later, when I’d accumulated another nest egg, I started over and bought five houses which I rented out for positive cash flow. Only after these were producing a reliable and constant cash income stream over the mortgage payments and operating costs did I buy nine more.
As I acquired expertise and confidence, I bought eleven more the next year and thirteen the next. At the age of forty five, I owned thirty eight single family houses which produced a net cash income stream of $43,060 per year over operating costs and mortgage payments. I was able to retire and start touring the country in my RV. Only after I got bored with the idle life did I start writing. This led to my seminar and newsletter business, and this booklet.
One person might say that it took only 4 years from my ‘new beginning’ until retirement, but it also took two decades of learning the hard way what DIDN’T WORK before I started doing things that did work. One of the objectives of this little booklet is to save you those lost 20 years. So don’t be in a rush to lose your money like I did. It’s a lot better to proceed carefully and methodically until you find the property which best suits your purpose.
Read the rest of the story in Jack Millers’s DOLLARS AND SENSE E-BOOK You’ll learn how to find, negotiate, and finance cash flow single family houses
