Often when I talk about investing in real estate, I divide the topic into two main groups of people: lazy people and poor people. I want to point out that I don’t think you can successfully become a real estate investor by being BOTH lazy AND poor, but I know you can be successful using either of these methods.
What do I mean when I say lazy people and what do I mean when I say poor people?
Lazy people are people who have more money than time and are willing to spend money to get things done for them.
The poor are people who have more time than money and are willing to do things to save or avoid spending money.
While I cover detailed examples, implementation strategies, and more in other articles, courses, and checklists, I’ll present some very basic examples of what I mean here.
Let’s say you’re trying to find great deals to buy or wholesale as a real estate investor. What is an example of a lazy way to find deals? Paying a dog-dog or wholesaler to find deals for you. Another example of a lazy method is placing an ad in the newspaper so that motivated sellers call you with properties they want to sell.
What’s a bad way to find great deals when you have more time than money to invest? Calling up “property for sale” ads in the newspaper, calling up “rent” ads in the newspaper or online, or placing free ads on free classified websites are all good methods. Driving (or walking) around your town looking for vacant or distressed properties is also a good strategy for the poor.
Can you see that someone who has little money to spend starting their business, but lots of time, might be very attracted to poor methods? Can you see that once your business is up and running and generating some cash flow, you may need to start leveraging your time by contracting out some tasks, employing more of the lazy methods?
Both methods can work, but each uses different resources at different rates: some use much more time, and some use much more money.
