While it may appear from the successes we had (we did after all successfully buy 52 homes) that everything was easy and straightforward, we had our f

One of the top keys to our success was the willingness—and
guts—to take action. He who hesitates is lost. If you sit around
and think too much, the good deals will be snatched up by
other investors who don’t think as much. Always take things off
the market. Our buyer’s agent always had a bunch of checks
from us for $1,000 to $5,000. We always had her fax a check to
take a house off the market. That buys you 24 to 48 hours to decide
whether you want it or not. You can always say you don’t
want to do it if you discover something untoward. However,
don’t sit there and say, “Should I do it or not? I don’t know. This
is so confusing.”
“I wasn’t afraid to pull the trigger, because I could always
back out,” Gene said. “Even if you can no longer back out,
be willing to cut your losses. The less money you put into a
deal, the less risk you have. If you have a $5,000 nonrefundable
earnest money deposit but the deal is no longer good,
walk away. If you’re not willing to do that, you shouldn’t be in
the game.”
But the commitment needed to pull off the challenge took a
lot more than the courage to walk away from $5,000. This was a
commitment that went beyond a simple concept of work.
Think about how the Wright Brothers learned to fly: They fell
out of the sky and crashed. A lot. Think about that again: The
pitch in their stomachs as they fell toward the Carolina sand
dunes again and again, out of control, splintered collarbones
in their mind’s eye. They had a lot of scary experiences without
the certainty of success before they soared.
Dolf wanted to partner with Gene because Gene wasn’t
afraid to take to the sky again and again.
“I didn’t team up with someone with no real estate experience
to show that someone with no experience could do it,”
Dolf said. “I teamed up with Gene because he had enough enthusiasm
that would compensate for a lack of experience.