Optimism is a good thing right? Isn’t an elite level of optimism essential for any real estate investing entrepreneur to succeed? Maybe, but it could also be silently setting you up for failure!
A high level of optimism is certainly crucial when starting out in real estate investing. You have big goals that need to be achieved and it is going to take a lot of positive attitude to get you to them, especially when facing the many challenges that will come your way.
Unfortunately, being too optimistic has been one of the greatest downfalls of many who have called themselves real estate investing pros. You should hope that everything goes according to plan, believe that you can make it, that you will sell your next property in record time and for top dollar but what about when things don’t pan out the way you expected? Will you fall apart?
There are real estate investing ‘gurus’ who will tell you that you don’t need to be reasonable or realistic about anything. “If only you believe it hard enough, you can make it happen”. While this is definitely true to a certain extent, especially in the grand picture of things, a hope and a dream won’t always get you though alone. You need to have the right plan, do your homework and take advantage of all the additional tools and real estate education you can get.
You need to be realistic about how much work rehabs take, the possibility that things can take longer to happen than you think, closing costs will be higher than expected and you will often net less than you hoped on your real estate investing deals. Other things will go wrong too. People will mess up and make mistakes which could potentially cost you thousands of dollars.
By hoping for the best and planning the worst or being a ‘pessimistic optimist’, you can take it all in your stride. Plan, where you can, commit to remaining calm under pressure and resolve to simply taking positive action to remedy the situation versus panicking.
If you can do this then you have every reason to be incredibly optimistic about your future in real estate investing.
