The Olympics and Real Estate Investing

I love the Olympics. There is something about watching professionals who have prepared their mind, body and heart to compete against the world for the greatest sport medal of all time – the gold medal. I can only imagine what it would be like to be on that stage to perform for the world. Yesterday I was touched when Alexandre Biodeau won the first ever gold Medal for Canada on their home soil. Don’t get me wrong I am all American and was happy that USA’s Bryon Wilson did not get knocked out of his Bronze Medal seat when the last contender took his place at the top of the run. Every time I watch the Moguls I remember my great friend Burke Alder that was a contender for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in his home town of Salt Lake City. He was on the US Ski team and was going to be a contender for an Olympic spot. Several months before the Olympics in nationals he blew out his knee and his Olympic hopes where taken over night. As I watched these Amazing Mogul Freestyle Athletes yesterday I also thought about real estate investing and free style skiing. What can we learn from Freestyle Skiers that may help us as real estate investors? If you think I am being too cliche or fake you don’t know me very well. I learn from everything and I mean everything. I also compare anything of value to my life and in doing this I found some very cool parallels of Mogul Free Style Skiing and Real Estate Investing. I look forward to sharing these with you over this week. They include the following:

Be Prepared

Point Your Ski Tips Down

Find Your Line

Choose Your Trick Wisely

Time Counts

Jump To Last Impression

Last Mogul Field

Celebrate

1. Be prepared. You can’t stand at the top of the Olympic Mogul Ski Run without having some serious preparation. The number one problem we see with real estate investors is they have no idea what a property is worth. Over 75% of people we talk to are off on their value of what they think the property is worth and what we KNOW the property is worth. Don’t take the word of one person on what the property will sell for especially if the person is the seller or getting paid as a part of the transition, even if they are representing you. It is interesting when we have our independent evaluators look at a property and determine a value. When we go back to the borrower and let them know what the values came in at, so many borrowers want to “fight the value”. You have to be kidding me. If two independent evaluators go to a property with no judgment and get paid to determine what the home will sale for, that is pretty unbiased. Let me give you an example. Last week we had two evaluations that came in. One was at $145,000 and the other was at $148,000. So the two evaluators that live in the area, that have no motivation other than getting paid to give a value on the property, that do not even know each other, come within $3,000 of each other on the price. We then told the borrower and the borrower thought they were wrong and wanted to challenge the value. Hello, Wake Up! We just saved you from a serious train wreck. We don’t turn down deals because of value we just require the borrower brings in the difference between what we can lend on the property and what they are buying the home for. But don’t get so emotional on a deal that you can’t see reality.

The Truth is that Markets go down and Markets go up. I just want the markets to move, because movement creates opportunity.