A lot of people have had a knee jerk reaction to real estate over the last few years. Ever since the housing bust crushed a lot of people’s equity and drove many a speculator into bankruptcy protection, a lot of the idiots who just wanted to ride the wave of “the market” have gone home to lick their wounds. And for the professional real estate investors of the world, this is just fine. The little dogs can stay on the porch, while the big dogs run all over the place. And in this case, the big dogs in question can always find a great deal on real estate. The trick is not to focus on when you are going to sell, but on how great of a deal your latest buying opportunity may or may not be.
Think about it. Being able to sell a piece of real estate is always going to be an iffy deal. Maybe there is going to be a buyer around, and maybe there isn’t. But if all else fails, if you can grow crops on the land, it can feed you and essentially pay for itself. And if you can rent it out to someone, it can more than pay for itself through the added security of having someone in there, as well as paying you whatever you get each month above and beyond the carrying costs that you are paying.
The trick is that you have got to think through how much it is going to cost you to own the place over the long term, and match that up against how much money you are going to be able to get from renting it out to someone else. If all else fails, you might never even want to sell the place to anybody. So do not focus on selling at all, since that might never happen. Focus on finding a great deal, and making your money there.