What are the Skills and Characteristics of a Successful Real Estate Investor?

One of the things I love and admire about our country is that anything is possible. Now it took me a couple of decades to learn that it’s a lot easier to accomplish “anything” if you

1. are passionate about “anything”

2. have some of the natural gifts (skills and characteristics) to accomplish your “anything”

How do these things relate to becoming a successful real estate investor? Let’s take a look.

Passion to Be a Real Estate Investor

Passion can take various forms, here are just a few:

• Love taking the old and make it new. Perfect for a fix and flipper

• Love the art of hunting down a deal. Perfect for a wholesaler

• Love creating decent housing for individuals or families. Perfect for a Landlord

• Love the ability to write your own ticket. Perfect for a real estate investor

• Characteristics of a Real Estate Investor

What characteristics does it take?

• Teachable and coachable. Are you willing to say you don’t know it all and seek out those who have more experience than you, and listen?  As the Director of Real Estate Education for OTA I often sit in class with my instructors to observe, and even though I’ve been investing for 25 plus years I always learn something.  The ability to take direction (be coachable) is also very important.

• Being able to make a decision and take action. There is a balance here. There is a process that needs to be followed, of due diligence, analyzing and then pulling the trigger.  That last step is the hardest but the most important.

• We laugh about the carrot on the end of the stick but it works to control a donkey or pig.  If they didn’t like carrots, it wouldn’t work.  So you have to know what your carrot is and answer the question, Will real estate investing help you get your carrot?

• A Great work ethic. You have to be willing to put the time in when it’s needed, solve whatever problem there may be, and do what it takes.

What Skills Does It Take To Be a Real Estate Investor?

• Having the right tools and knowing how to use them to make an informed decision.

• Communication – the ability to talk to people you don’t know and make them feel comfortable.

• Seeing what is possible – not just what is.

• Understanding how money and budgets work.

There are more skills and characteristics I could list and some may fit you and some may not.  The only thing you really need is the desire and willingness to learn and make things happen.  If you don’t have some of the skills you hire people that do – that is why we help you build your team, so the team can fill in the gaps.  If you aren’t good at pulling the trigger, find someone that is assertive and take them as a partner.  If you are clueless about setting budgets or how to analyze a property, take an OTA Real Estate Class and find out how cool and easy our tools are to use.

Where there is passion and will, there is a way.

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