If it was easy everyone would…

I’ve been getting an education these last couple of months into some of the inner workings of real estate and banking.  I have a real estate side project that has finally begun to get going after being stalled out for a couple of months.

Sure it looked simple and easy in my head.  Just sign a couple forms, a little paperwork, and suddenly all your plans will move ahead and before you know it you’ll be a real estate tycoon.

HA!

I thought some of the terminology in my line of work was esoteric.  Well.  It is.  But it turns out to be nothing compared to all the terminology used in the real estate game.  More than once I walked out of my realtor’s office with my head spinning from all these new terms that my realtor was throwing out at me.

Then there was the lovely business of securing a home equity loan.  Bouncing back and forth between lenders till I had them pinned down to their final and best offers.  Free hint.  They will never give you the best offer on the first go round.

Never.

Then you have to let go of one lender and they react as if you’re breaking up with them.  Not fun.

Then of course the reams of paperwork at the title office attesting to this that and the other thing.  Everything copied, notarized and duly delivered.  I sign and initial here, there, and everywhere.  In the back of my head a quote from the play Faust keeps repeating over and over.

“did we force ourselves on thee, or thou on us?”

So finally it’s all in and now the fun part starts, right?  Now comes haggling with property owners, finagling with contractors, paying for a dozen little items here and there that you hadn’t considered.  Crossing your fingers that you find a tenant.  Doubly crossing your fingers you find a tenant that won’t wreck the place.

No, not that simple.  But is it worthwhile?  Ultimately only time will tell but I think it’s something I had to do and I wouldn’t have done it if I had not thought it wouldn’t succeed.

My hope for this first time out (besides the hope of making money) is that I will be better prepared for the next time that I do this and better mentally armored for this type of business.