Are You Going to Learn About the House, or Just Keep Staring at that Brick?

By Vena Jones-Cox

Indulge me in a fable, and see if it jibes with your current, or perhaps past, experience as a developing real estate entrepreneur:

You’re standing on a sidewalk with your nose an inch away from a brick. It’s a good brick. You’ve studied it for a while, and you’ve come to the conclusion that it’s reddish, rough, and surrounded on all four sides by parts of other bricks. You’ve looked at it long enough to decide that it’s a pretty great brick.

Someone walks by and asks, what are you doing? Looking at this brick, you reply.

Are you sure it’s a brick you’re looking at? the stranger queries. You might want to take a step back, because there’s more to see here than you think.

So, you take a step back, and you realize that he’s right: the brick you’ve been so obsessed with is just one of many. In fact, from your new perspective, you notice out of the corner of your eye that there’s also something else–a hole, with glass and wood in it. Is that important? What does it do? Should you spend any time finding out more about it?

While you’re wondering, another passerby happens along and asks what you’re doing.

I’m looking at all these bricks, and this weird opening, you explain.

No, step back: you’re looking at a wall, says your new friend. That’s a window, and it opens and closes to let air and light in, and that particular one needs to be replaced.

So, you do, and you realize that you are, in fact, looking at a wall. The wall, it turns out, is made up of hundreds of bricks, and there are half a dozen windows, and also something at the top that hangs over. Oh, no, you think. What’s that?? Do I need to worry about that, too?? Who can tell me what that is? This was a lot easier when it was just a brick.

Another pedestrian happens by, and says, Are you OK? You look confused. and you reply, this wall has me stumped. I understand the bricks, and the windows, but what in the world is that up there?

He says, oh, you mean that gutter? It carries rain from the roof to the downspouts, so that it doesn’t cause problems with the house.

HOUSE??? you exclaim. What’s a HOUSE???

Dude, he replies, you might want to walk around the corner. There’s a lot more to be seen here.

So, you do, and you’re startled to discover that the brick you thought you knew so well is a tiny part of a much bigger structure. There are FOUR walls, and MORE openings that look sorta like windows but not quite, and it’s all topped off with this angled whatsits that doesn’t look like brick or wood or concrete or anything you’ve ever seen before.

You’re not sure which parts do what, or whether you should bother to find out, or HOW you’d find out. It’s overwhelming–you thought you’d found a great brick that you really understood, and now you’ve discovered that there’s a whole structure here that you don’t, and you don’t even know if it’s all important, or whether just the bricks are.

Real estate investing education is like that. Just as really understanding the structure and systems of a house isn’t easy, really understanding the whole real estate business takes time, determination, and study, and lots of practice.

And just as some people don’t have the patience, or maybe the time, or maybe the foresight, to know that if you don’t understand a house, you probably shouldn’t make an offer on that house, some people don’t have the patience, time, or foresight to learn about the business, either.

Or maybe they prefer to keep staring at that one brick, and keep believing that if they understand that brick, they understand the whole house.

EVERY TIME you’re absolutely convinced that you really know everything, some REIA member, or speaker, or focus group leader, comes along and says, “Oh, did you not know that there are also cape cods, and bi-levels, and apartments, and land, and different ways of buying them, and different strategies for making money on them, different strategies for saving costs, and…”

And every time, you have to decide if you’re happy just using what you already know, or if you’re up for another round of learning, discovering, consulting, thinking, feeling stupid, being humble, understanding, and adding bricks to the wall of your knowledge.

If you totally hate the idea that there’s always more to learn, and you want that first brick to be all you need to prosper for the rest of your life, you probably just won’t be very good at this business.

If the thought of it makes you tired, but you’re willing to do it anyway, because you know that knowledge applied equals profit, you’ll probably find a niche that makes you happy and makes you lots of money.

If you’re excited by the idea that there are always new things to learn out there, and you can’t even SEE them right now because you don’t have the perspective at the moment, but you’re looking forward to knowing all you can, you’ll make a ton of money and love this business ‘til the day you die.

Surprisingly, one of the common compliments/ complaints we get is that there are too many educational opportunities—but we never apologize for that. Our job is to offer you the chance to see and understand ALL the bricks.

It’s up to you to what you decide to use to build the business of your dreams.