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 Be a person of action.Be a person of action. Get out there and make something happen. You will succeed by doing. You research. You read. You ask lots of questions from Nardo and Jones and other investors and your Mastermind Alliance and all of this is fine, but at some point you have to stand up for yourself, alone, and act. This isn't the stock market, where other people are making the corporate decisions for you. In the real estate investment business, you are in control. But, nothing happens without you. You have to exercise your control. Act.  In reading your Action Principle every day and doing your twenty minutes of quiet time, hopefully, you will be brimming with self-confidence. If you see a house for sale for $190,000 that you know with a little care that house could be resold for $230,000, you don't set up a committee, you make an immediate offer. Be a person of action. You can talk. You can think. But, to get anywhere, YOU have to act. It's not Nardo's decision or your friend's or your father's or even your spouse's, it is YOUR decision.
Why do some people fail even if they have this system? They are afraid to act. They keep asking questions, but they are really hoping for an excuse not to act. Most people will tell you what they think you want to hear. If you act squeamishly, friends and family will tell you to be safe and not buy. There are others who will be jealous of your success and will tell you not to buy. There will be those who really don't care what you do, they only want an opportunity to tell you either how great they are or how stupid you are for buying investment real estate. Let the Action Principles® be your guide. Worry about yourself and what you can do and not how others are acting. Always remember, most people are doing NOTHING! 
Accomplishing this goal might take you six years to acquire the properties and twenty years to pay them off. Or, you can wheel and deal and accelerate the program. Or you can make up your own program.  Remember from Master Success that only two percent of people have written goals and only one percent of people review those goals every day. Make your real estate investment goal part of your mission statement and read it every day. Most people are doing nothing or investing in the stock market and hoping that someone else will do something for them. You be different. You be a person of action with a written goal that you review every day. If you do this, I wouldn't be very worried about the chances for your success. You will have put yourself into that very elite group of achievers. 
You may find two good deals in one month and nothing for six months. Here is a statistic to remember - the average person moves every seven years. You can take the total number of properties within your investment area and divide by seven and have a pretty good idea of how many properties will be on the market in any given year. Wait. Be patient. The deals will come. In the beginning, you will have to go out and find the deals. After you have become an active and successful real estate investor, the deals will start finding you. You will be known as an active real estate investor who can make decisions.You must keep to your research. You must keep looking at ads in the newspapers and magazines and online. You must keep looking at properties. What does $100,000 buy in your investment area? $200,000? $500,000? $1,000,000? When you know value, you will see profit. When you spot a good real estate deal and make $20,000 or $50,000 dollars almost in a flash from your intellect, this is the same $20,000 or $50,000 that other people have to work a year to earn. This is compensation for your research time.
Stop thinking about $2,000 and start thinking about $200,000. Someone is making big deals, and that person can be you. Some people buy two-family houses and some people buy 200-unit apartment complexes. No one is likely to run up to you in the streets and hand you bags of money. You have to earn it. And, forget the State Lotteries. Lotteries are just a means for government to get tax money from people who aren't good at math. At least realize that there is probably no better or safer way for you to achieve your financial dreams than local real estate investing. If you want, you can buy a 200-unit apartment building, but all you'll need are those six small properties.
Every deal doesn't work. You may spend weeks or months on a deal and you may put up hundreds or thousands in upfront costs for NOTHING. This is the nature of the business. In every deal, there can be many factors involved: real, imagined, serious, logical, stupid, emotional, timely. Sometimes these factors will work in your favor and sometimes they won't. If you play the game, you will win some and lose some. But, remember you don't necessarily have to do lots of deals to reach your goals. You can buy your six properties in a straightforward manner and not get involved in anything more complicated than taking your rent checks to the bank once each month. In this course, you will read about converting and developing and rehabbing and wheeling-dealing, but you don't have to get involved in any of them. You can just buy your six properties. Optional. Get the names and home addresses of every income property owner in your specific investment area. Send each a note every two months telling them that you are a buyer. If you become an agent, as discussed in a later lesson, this step will be a must.  Optional. Place a classified ad or small display ad in your local newspaper to the effect that you are an investor interested in buying real estate. Since almost all deals are all cash, you can call yourself an all cash buyer. For example: WE ARE BUYERS!Note that in this example, a business name was used rather than a personal name. Many investors choose to operate using a DBA (Doing Business As) format for acquisition and management. Check with your local town clerk and bank about using a DBA. Make lots of offers. Would you buy the $200,000 property if you could buy it for $190,000 or $175,000? Make the offer. Offers cost you nothing! Make lots of offers. Will you insult the sellers? You are offering them a lot of money and all they have to say is "Yes, No or Maybe". If someone wants to pay them $200,000, they can do that. If the property is still on the market, obviously no one has. You are a real estate investor. You are looking for good deals. This is what every successful businessperson in every business does. Making an offer is opening a dialogue. Don't be embarrassed when making offers. Don't be intimidated by agents. This is not about them and what they want. This is about you and your carefully considered investment program. This is about what you want for yourself and your family. If an agent who is presenting your offers appears to be negative, ask to accompany the agent and make the presentation yourself. An agent could be working against your interest for several reasons:
 Local politics can play a key role in your investment strategy, especially if you are developing or redeveloping properties. Who is in? Who is out? How can you support the winners? Is it in your interest to stay neutral or independent? Do all the area wheelers and dealers and movers and shakers frequent the same morning coffee shop? Then, that's where you go. Remember, you don't have to remain an active investor forever. It's only going to take a few years for you to acquire your six permanent properties. Then, you can relax and watch the world go. In twenty years, you'll be financially independent. Let's say that you buy a $200,000 house for $180,000. Using this system, buying a house for 10% under market value would be a minimum expectation. You might have a $160,000 first mortgage on the property, which means that you have about $40,000 worth of equity. Immediately after buying this house, you will want to get as much of that $40,000 as you can back in the form of a line of credit. A line of credit will be your "bank account" sitting there ready to be put to work on your next deal. However, you don't have to pay interest on your line of credit until you actually use the money. This is the perfect scenario for you as an investor.  Remember that as you continue your research, you will begin to discover how arbitrary real estate appraisal can be. From above, you have a house for $200,000 that you buy for $180,000. You receive a $160,000 mortgage from Bank A. After the closing, you now own the house and are in a different position as a borrower. You can immediately decide to refinance. You may or may not have done any work to the house. You approach Bank B and have the house reappraised for $220,000 or more. You borrow against this new appraised amount. Of course, as you continue to borrow at or near the full value of the property, your risks may increase. Based upon your own personal situation, you must determine the amount of risk you wish to assume. If you are borrowing to take advantage of another deal, the risk may be warranted. If you are borrowing to buy yourself a new watch and a fancy vacation, be careful. 
This isn't meant to be funny. Sometimes, people will sell you their property because they like you, and conversely, some people will refuse to sell you their property because they don't like you. My grandfather, Harry, had a mantra, "It's nice to be nice". Hear Harry. It pays to be nice and polite and respectful and considerate. This is following the Action Principles®. You could be looking at the worst handyman's special in town, but it is never in your interest to insult the seller. When you are inspecting a property, the housekeeping of the owner or the tenants is not your concern. If you are buying a building with tenants, the tenants will naturally be concerned about a change in ownership. At this stage, the tenants may be hostile. Be pleasant and professional.Take the extra step and make the extra effort. There is nothing wrong with creating a list of public officials and business movers and shakers and sending them holiday cards. You are going to be a business leader in your community, so act like one. Find other investors and network with them. Find the old timers who own investment properties in your area and listen to their stories. It all adds up. It may make a lot of business sense to support various local officials with your time and money. Let common sense prevail. In politics, money usually buys access. In my town, we don't have a wealthy barber but we do have a wealthy mechanic. This fellow pumps gas and fixes cars in his small two bay garage. Why does he do this? I don't know since he owns at least a dozen income properties. He is a millionaire several times over. Is he a nice guy? He is very nice and I'm sure he'd be very happy to answer the questions of any local aspiring young investor. He would be a great mentor if anyone would care to ask. Is there a wealthy barber or wealthy mechanic or wealthy plumber in your town? Probably, yes. Do your research. Patronize their businesses. Become friends. Ask. Listen. Learn.  This database of information will be your goldmine! Organize a time that is convenient for you to look at current listings. You want to see many different properties in your investment area in all price ranges. The more properties you see, the greater your knowledge base will be. This happens. This happens again. This happens again and again. However, it never happens for those who make excuses. It only happens again and again and again for those who take action. Why do we call them The Action Principles®? Continuing Education: http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/ Official website of The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), a wholly owned government corporation, which was established under the National Housing Act of 1934 to improve housing standards and conditions, to provide an adequate home financing system through insurance of mortgages, and to stabilize the mortgage market. FHA was consolidated into the newly established Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 1965. Since 1934, FHA has been extremely successful in achieving these goals. Primarily provides services to first-time homebuyers. Go to Lesson 7
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