That’s my biggest a-ha in the last 9 months. True, I haven’t blogged at all this year, but last night I was having dinner with some friends and we were talking about yes, real estate. In the last 12 months my wife and I have done more deals of our own than we ever anticipated. One transaction in particular was especially challenging. I was asked if we at least made any money on the deal. We had. And did I learn anything, I was further asked. Yes: it has to make sense from the beginning.
You can go with your gut all day, and really you should. But if you are only going with your gut and aren’t balancing in pragmatism what sort of whimsical world are you left with? And so with this one deal, I found my spirit to be further and further beaten by it. The deal itself was great; it was the surrounding components that made it bumpy. The bitchy neighbor and her trash-talking lawyer husband. Unraveling and sorting rumor from fact regarding city code and plat. The world markets rollercoastering to who knows where. Things I couldn’t control.
Once I emerged from the other side, I exhaled. I wasn’t discouraged. Nor upset with anyone, including myself. I felt good about what I had chosen to do. But damn. It has to make sense from the beginning. Explore the what ifs. Do your research more and better. Gen Xers are labeled as the untrusting of the old guard, research-it-till-you-can’t group. More of that. Learn as much as you can about something before deciding on it. And yeah, don’t trust the old guard. Make’em earn it. At the very least believe in yourself enough to know the difference between bark and bite. The bastards rarely bite, so call’em on it.
