How Wealthy Would You Be If You Could Have Avoided All the Set Backs, Mistakes & Do-Overs in Your Investing?
Here's How to Unravel the Habits that Created Those Losses & Move From the Embarrassment of Trial & Error Failures to Consistent Profits
My name is Chad Barker, and I have spent over 20 years investing in real estate.
Although I've made a huge amount of money with my investment in that time, I've made plenty of mistakes.
And down below, I'm going to tell you about the biggest ones.
Three Quarter of a Million!
A few years ago, I sat down and added up how much all my mistakes cost me.
It was over $765,000!
And that's just the losses themselves.
That doesn't count the loss of opportunities because I didn't have that cash.
Nor does it count the growth I could have realized on that principal.
Why am I telling you this?
Because you don't learn much from your successes.
As a matter of fact, you don't learn from other people's successes either, which is how I learned early on to carefully choose who I listen to.
I've listened to a number of investors brag about their success, and I can tell (usually from the short amount of time they've been in the business) that they just got lucky.
The valuable lessons come from the mistakes (whether you make them or you learn from someone else's).
Learning the Right Lesson Requires Skill
Every time we start a new venture, we get enrolled in the School of Hard Knocks.
(I think I was bullied while I was there.)
The problem with this School is that the lessons it teaches are hidden.
It's like getting spanked for something you did 3 months ago, and your parents don't tell you what it was.
As we search for a reason for the punishment, we we end up either:
- Blaming others
- Giving up
Most people who get knocked around learn only one lesson:
"I'm never doing that again!"
I purchased this property right here.
(It was part of a portfolio of houses that I bought, and a little later I'll get to the extremely costly mistakes I make in that portfolio deal.)
I had a water damage problem that would have cost $5,000 to repair, most of which would have been covered by insurance.
But my mistakes created a $35,000 disaster, and none of it was covered by insurance!
Now I could have blamed a lot of people for this problem:
- The insurance company for denying the claim
- The municipal water employee who turned on the water in the vacant house without making sure it didn't keep running.
- The Tenant who was moving out and, after after having the water shut off at the street, left a valve open.
- The handyman who offered to remove the standing water in the house, and then disappeared leaving me hanging.
I could have also reached other conclusions, like:
- Don't buy houses in remote locations (this one was way out in the country).
- Don't have tenants.
- Don't buy any investment property ever!
But none of those conclusions or any one I blamed is the real lesson.
The real lesson is:
I Violated My Rules
So if you don’t want to gamble your retirement on the far-fetched dream of owning a Lamborghini or flying in a private jet, but you do want to secure your future and be able to provide the life you want for those you love and leave behind the legacy they deserve, then you're in the right place.