Two things got me thinking.
1. I’ve been reading more and more about real estate lately. I’ve found The Bigger Pockets Podcast, and I’ve started reading things like Building Wealth One House at a Time and Buy It, Rent It, Profit. I have been learning, but I’ve also been encountering some of the hype and read-my-other-book and come-to-my-workshop nonsense that comes with the territory.
2. I was listening to this week’s episode (#543) of This American Life this morning. They spent quite a bit of time talking about a new get-money-from-your-friends scam called Wake Up Now.
These things got me wondering if, by buying this investment property, we hadn’t bought in to some kind of scam. We are still at the stage where we are pouring money into this property and is not fully rented. What if it has all been some kind of mistake?
Well, tonight I was having a glorious couple hours of productive solitude, painting and cleaning at the new property when I heard someone knock on the door. It was the next door neighbor with a friend who wanted to see the place because she is in the market for a new apartment. So I showed it to her, despite the fact that it is knee-deep in construction debris and tools from one end to the other. It made me realize again that real estate *is* real. It’s a real product, with real customers who have a real need you are filling. And because it is a real business and not a multi-level marketing scheme, you don’t have to sell the product or the system to your friends. Complete strangers will agree to hand you money on a regular basis. And sometimes, they will even come knock down on your door to do it.
what we could become 