This is another one of those “Captain Obvious” reports. After the Apartment Bus Tour last month a couple of offers came in on buildings we looked at that made me realize how important perspective and experience are with respect to pricing offers. And how they are not often easily transferable between different types of real estate investing.

I’ve been studying sales processes lately, and I picked up a really interesting book on the topic this week. It’s called “You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar”. I was surprised how relevant the title was to real estate investors.

Entirely by accident I listened to a few minutes of the mutual fund sales puke show on one of our local radio stations. Talk about selective perception. This clown takes the cake. When the market is up – it’s a RALLY AND BUY EVERYTHING YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON. And guess what? When the market is down, IT”S AN OPPORTUNITY TO BUY BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS CHEAP!!!

Brian is another one of the experts that I rely on in my business. His focus is commercial property insurance. And that’s REALLY his focus – he’s not the guy that writes the homeowner’s policy on your personal residence and then says “sure, I can give you a quote on that apartment building”. Here we were talking about safety issues like security cameras, smoke detectors, and sprinkler systems. You’ll see why it pays to bring…

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I consider the people I use in my business to be a source of competitive advantage for me. John McAuliffe of Quality Home Inspection is one of those people. One of the properties on the June Apartment Bus Tour has some nasty looking brick issues on the back wall that could lead a buyer to think there is structural damage. Take a look at John’s assessment.