Other People’s Time Is
Like Other People’s Money
By Alan Brymer
The author has permitted the reprinting and redistribution of this
article.
Money and time have a few things in common. Both are required to be
successful in real estate, but everyone’s personal supply of
both has its limits. Fortunately, you can use OPT (Other
People’s Time) in real estate just as you can use OPM (Other
People’s Money) in order to do more deals and avoid being a
slave to your business.
When we hear about real estate deals that don’t require any
money, it usually means that money is needed to do the deals, but that
money comes from private lenders, from the sellers, or from buyers.
Money makes the world go ‘round, and it’s almost
always necessary to use at least a little bit in order to buy and sell
a house retail (not wholesaling), unless you are particularly skilled
at finding houses in perfect condition and matching them with a ready,
willing, and able owner-occupant buyer and having a simultaneous
closing.
But again, when you do have to use money for deals (catching up
payments, paying the seller, repairs, closing costs, monthly payments,
and advertising costs) it doesn’t have to come from your
hard-earned savings. You can use OPM from a private lender or partner.
Using other people’s time is the same way, in fact even more
so. If you think you have a short supply of money, you have an even
shorter supply of time. Time is something that you can’t make
any more of. It is the one thing that broke people and
multi-millionaires alike gripe about not having enough of. There is a
maximum number of hours you are able to work week after week before you
get ill, shut down, or go crazy. And the number of hours you desire to
work each week is probably much, much smaller than that.
But being a real estate entrepreneur requires time spent. Although the
time spent is a heck of a lot less if you’re smart and
don’t do things like doing repairs yourself, I’ve
yet to find an investor that doesn’t have to put in at least
a few hours per week to do deals, or at least supervise the process. If
you have a full-time job somewhere else, even a few extra hours per
week spent on real estate can be a major nuisance to your family. And,
as I’ve learned from networking with investors over the
years, they usually spend much more time on real estate each week than
a few hours—driving around with their cell phones glued to
their ears, forever talking, talking, talking.
So what is the solution Many investors wish they could get rid of their
full-time jobs so they would have more time to pursue real estate
deals. That is one way of increasing the hours that you have available.
But, I guarantee you that nine times out of ten, the investors who do
this end up working almost as much as they used to, with most of their
newfound time spent finding new ways to be busy. The human mind hates a
vacuum, so whenever we have a space of free time we usually race to
find something new to fill it with.
The only real solution for not having enough time is the same as the
solution for not having enough money—use someone
else’s. Fortunately, it’s a lot easier to find
someone who is willing to give you their time than it is to find
someone who will give you their money. And, what you pay for OPT is
usually a heck of a lot less than we’re using to paying
people for the use of their money.
Almost everything you do as an investor can be done by someone who is
working for you. The challenge is finding the right people, training
them well enough, and staying on top of things. Once you master these
skills, you can multiply the number of hours available to do deals
every week and accomplish more than you were physically or emotionally
capable of doing alone. Plus, you now have the added benefit of getting
work done without the rigors of having to do much of it yourself
anymore.
So, the big secret to having more time is to make a list of everything
you do to make money in real estate (hang signs, run ads, inspect
houses, make calls, check emails, talk with buyers, run errands, etc)
and ask yourself, “Which of these things should someone else
be doing for me” Once you have the list of tasks, the next
step is to hire someone to take the workload off of your back and put
it onto theirs. When you have done this, it will amaze you how much
more productive you can be, how many more deals you can do, and how
much closer you have come to having the income and the lifestyle that
made us want to get started as real estate entrepreneurs in the first
place.
Alan Brymer is the creator of The Assistant Who Pays Their Own Salary,
and has been a full-time investor since his first property at the age
of 22. His business was named by the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum
as one of the “Top 25 Companies Under Five Years
Old.” To receive a Free copy of The 5 Key Elements to Running
a Systematic Real Estate Business, go to httpwww.AlanBrymer.comblog.
If
you would like to take advantage of the market and learn how to invest
in real estate and you are local to the Dallas Fort Worth area, I know
a really great teacher and mentor here in Arlington Texas. Please take
a look at his web site: DennisJHenson.com,
Dennis has a great Mentoring and training program, I know because I am
one of his former students. I learned a lot from his one on one
teaching technique. - Michael Harman 817-457-7572
mchfun.business@gmail.com
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