Only 2%

Last month Pine Financial Group hosted the 2020 Minnesota Real Estate Investor Success Summit, it was a great event and we had our best turnout to date with over 215 registered. I had the chance to host the event, which is always fun because deep down I think I’m a comedian. Ask my wife and she’ll tell you there’s nothing an aspiring comedian loves more than a new audience! I very much enjoy the opportunity to be in front of a crowd and provide the tools to grow your business. At Success Summit, I was especially blown away and offered everyone in attendance the opportunity to schedule a call with me to help offer guidance or feedback on their current strategy or goals. Over 10 years investing in real estate, I have been fortunate to participate in thousands of businesses as a hard money lender, developer, landlord, agent, pinball player, etc. I fully acknowledge and respect that I may not have been the most established investor in the room that day, but I was the only one with a microphone who offered this opportunity. This is where the 2% comes in, only four people accepted the offer. This could be evidence of my poor ability to “sell” the service, or I suspect it’s more an indication of the difference between 2% and 98% of people who attend real estate investing events.

The guys in the office often give me a hard time about my “go to” by saying about the events we host, “why are you here today?” Sure we laugh a bit, but I’m serious, people who identify as investors are giving up their evenings, weekends, free time, and often money to attend classes, seminars, and webinars on this topic. elusive of real estate investment. For this reason, I ask the question: “Why are you here today?”

So what does it take to be in the top 2% vs. the 98%? One of the many things I love about investing in real estate is that almost anyone can do it. It depends on your skills and resources, or your ability to take advantage of the skills and resources of others, but what is not negotiated is desire. That desire is created by one individual’s vision, often referred to as “The Big Why” and the beauty of it is that it’s different for everyone! One person’s goal in attending an event may simply be to buy a home to live in, while others may be on their way to syndicate $100 million in multi-family investments. Most are somewhere in between looking to supplement or replace their current income through investing. The ability to execute the individual plan returns to the “why”, people go to the whys which are “for my family”, “quitting my job”, “being rich”. Let’s look at the family response, because to attend all of these events, the attendee must spend time away from her family. If the goal of investing in real estate is to help your family –

Is it to generate additional income to cover an event, like college or a wedding?

• Is it to provide income that allows a family to have a nicer home, better schools?

• Is it to supplement income so a spouse can stay home or reduce hours to spend time with family?

• Is it to replace income so that you are more available to be with your family?

Once the true why is established, you reverse engineer what it will take to achieve the goal, how many trades, rentals, wholesale deals, etc. This is a relatively simple process; However, in all my time with real estate investors, I have found that a lack of vision is what leads to aimlessly attending one event after another, hoping to achieve the last topic presented until the next item appears. sparkly.

The four phone calls I had with the free riders had a common theme, they just needed to hear it from someone else. It’s amazing how an objective opinion from a third party can bring a plan into perspective so quickly. Two were trying to figure out how to break into small 20- to 50-unit multi-family properties, but both needed to take some very specific (though not obvious) steps to make it happen. The other two just needed to structure a small rental portfolio to provide enough monthly cash flow so they could retire a little more comfortably.

2020 is well underway, before you spend another night or weekend away from loved ones or pay to attend a “life changing” event, I challenge you all to slow down and identify “why we are here today”. .