Traits Of a Successful Property Investor

You become what you think. The last statement did not have many words but in many ways it summarises the leitmotif of life. The statement couldn’t ring truer anywhere than in real estate.

Sloppy investors commit a mindset crime

Few and far between, there will be that giant of a property investor who will behave without fear in a bearish market but the real estate story is more or less laced with those investors who behave fearfully even when the market gives bullish signals. Why this may be so? Is it the precariousness of the economy, the quicksilver nature of the market or the lack of confidence in our own knowledge that makes us so fearful?  Let me share with you what I think about this whole business.

For me, investment-fear is a mindset crime; one that robs from us the opportunity to make best use of the prospects the market throws at us (and at a commendable pace, too).

Fear factor

The fear factor that I talk about largely emanates from what I choose to call the herd mentality. We do not want to burn our palm touching the market at a time our peers are giving it a slip. We fear 1) becoming poorer than them (courtesy an overambitious investment gone wrong) and 2) becoming an object of ridicule.

Successful investors

Take out the leaf from the book of any successful property investor and it will be replete with instances where the given entrepreneur dared to attack the market even when his peers felt the act to be soaked in danger. Successful investors flirt with danger only to woo it and tame it in time.

How do you behave during bearish markets?