Orlando Miner: avoid these real estate investing mistakes! beginner's guide to property investment

Hello everyone, welcome to my channel. And today we're gonna be talking about my biggest mistake that I've made in investing. And it just so happens to be in the realm of real estate. Ooh, go figure, right? But let's just talk about this. And I really wanna tell this story because I think it's very important for everyone to see that even though, you know, I'm really into real estate, I've been doing it for a long time, got a bunch of properties and all this other stuff, that I am too still human and make mistakes. And I think it's very important that others can learn from your mistakes because I learned from this. So let's just go back. This happened with my very first property. And me and my wife and my family, I was really, really pushing to get a investment property. We were at the time renting and our lease was coming up and I decided that, you know, we were gonna have to push the button to buy. And so we found this duplex and the duplex was literally kind of like right around the corner from where I lived, maybe three to five minutes. You know, I went to go look at it and it looked great. I mean, it was a nice property. We went inside to go take a look at it. It kind of did have some old elements. The layout wasn't really the best, but at that time I was willing to make it work. Went to the other side, took a look at that. The tenants in there had been tenants for a very long time. I mean, they had been staying there for like eight to 10 years. They were older. They told me they weren't gonna leave anytime soon. So I figured, wow, this is great. You know, this is awesome. Well, long story short, I tried to work something out with the current owner and say, hey, look, we're ready to buy. And I gave myself ample time, guys. And this is what I prepared. I did everything that I'm telling you guys is I prepared. I prepared for a long period of time, gave myself two and a half months to close on this while still staying in the apartment that we were renting. And it still wasn't enough time. This owner was just taking her time over and over and over. And I decided that, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and, you know, try to push this and see how we can, you know, get it done. Well, at the end of the day, she ended up telling me that there was some difficulties and she really wouldn't go into it. But my back was against the wall, guys. It was against the wall. We had to purchase or we had to extend the lease that we currently were in. The property management company would not allow us to do a month to month. So we had to figure out a way. So I remember speaking to the owner and owner saying, well, you know, one of the sides is free. You can go ahead and rent. And I thought about it. And this is where I made my first mistake. This is where I made my first mistake, guys, is that I went ahead and moved into the unit that I was supposed to purchase. And I then became a renter to a property to the owner. And I thought, well, this would give us enough time to actually purchase it. And boy, was that a mistake. That was a mistake. And the reason why is this, is first mistake. I switched the power, the relationship between me and the owner, right? I gave all of the power to the seller, to the owner, then could decide if she wanted to sell to me, if, I mean, I was her tenant now. She just had all the power because I made a decision that I was just so tunnel vision into purchasing this property. And then I just, I made the decision to do it. So we get inside this unit, and then we see some things that are kind of wrong with it when you want to live in a property and you start putting your mind against it. We're gonna fix this. We're gonna fix that. We're gonna fix this and that and the other. And then we put all the money together as far as how much to rehab and all that other stuff to do. And I was willing to do it, guys. I was willing to do it because I was so gunned and honed in on owning my first property. I was just so willing to do it. Six months later, property still wasn't sold. The owner had some issues with the government and there was liens and there was this and that and the other and what did I do? Being the nice guy that I am, is I told the owner that I would help them try to get rid of the issues that they had with the government, because I had experience and I'm a finance guy. So I knew exactly what the deal was and how to make it work and this. And so what did I do? I started working on the government case as far as the getting rid of the liens with the IRS and whatnot. And she was extremely ecstatic. She was like, wow, you're better than anybody that I've talked to about. How do you know this information? How do you know what to do? And all this other stuff. I made mistake number two. Two, I was working for free on a property that I didn't even own and I was giving up my time. I was giving up basically my worth and then even giving more power to this owner that I wanted to purchase the property from. And she couldn't even be happier. Fast forward another three months, still haven't done anything. Why? Because even though I'm doing this work for free, do you think anybody appreciates when you do it work for free? No. No, because it's free. So she took her time and she, after nine months of me doing free work, giving her rent, what did she end up telling me? She ended up telling me, you know what? I decided that I don't wanna sell the property and I don't wanna give the government any money or anything. I don't wanna fix this issue. I'm just gonna keep the property now. So what? That's what I was like, what? Are you kidding me? I did nine months of free work for you and I was buying the property. I was overpaying for the property. I see that now. I saw that. But it was my first property and I was gonna overpay for this property. I was gonna have to fix it up. And then I gave away nine months of free work. Free work. Got her to the finish line. I mean, I got her to the finish line with the IRS and everything and the IRS was willing to make a deal. And then she turned down the deal. She turned down the deal, guys. And just burned me. And yeah, I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back and I just couldn't take it anymore. And I had wised up by then and I decided, you know what? I'm outta here. It's not gonna work. I'm just gonna hit the eject button and I bought my, probably one of my best deals ever after that. I did a video on it where I made about $65,000 on just a purchase. It was a foreclosure. I mean, it is by far one of my best deals because I bought it with equity already invested into it. So watch that video. It's one of my earlier videos. But the point is, is that I had to go through all of that. All of that. And thank you, me, that I didn't purchase that property because it would have been a huge, huge, huge mistake. I did make mistakes, guys. There were mistakes that I could recover from. I wasn't stuck with a property that I ended up buying for overpaying for it. I kind of just learned my lesson through the grace of God that not to do this and not any other. So what mistakes did I make it here? I just want to list them off really quickly. So number one, I was running off of emotion. I mean, that's truly what it was. Like I really wanted this property. I wanted to get into an investment property so bad that I was willing to transfer over the power between me and the owner. And I didn't keep us separate. And I should have done that. Number two is I was overpaying for the property. She wasn't willing to go down on a property. And I kind of just said, okay, well, let me do the numbers. And when I did the numbers, I knew I wasn't really making that much. But once again, this comes with experience is I knew I wasn't making that much, but it was enough for me on my first property. And I also thought I'll make up for it on my other properties in the future. No, no, no, no. Every property should stand on its own. You shouldn't combine what you're gonna make in the future or what you've already purchased. The property stands on its own guys. Third mistake, I was working for free. Why am I working for free for this lady? Why am I doing an A plus job where she should be hiring attorneys and all this other stuff? And yes, I do have experience in it. And yes, I was working in the favor, but if you really add up all the costs, I was overpaying for it and the amount of time and money that would be equal to my time. It was just ridiculous. That's the third mistake I was making. And then we're gonna knock on the bonus section here. Bonus mistake number four is my research was lacking. I didn't do right amount of research and to figure out exactly what I should be getting per door and all that other stuff. And I should have also confided in someone else to kind of get their other opinion because I think that is very key is to even run it by someone who you trust and say, hey man, look into this. What do you think about this deal? I think that is very, very important to do. Even at this level that I am right now, I like to run it by someone just to kind of see if I'm missing something. And I think everyone should do that. And I didn't do that. I didn't. I just thought, you know what? I know what I'm doing and I'm gonna do it. And yeah, that's fool's gold, you know? So once again, guys, I hope you enjoyed this story about one of the biggest mistakes I made. It was really one of my biggest first mistakes when it comes to investing. So if you got value out of this content, please hit that subscribe button, hit that notification and like button and I'll see you guys on the next one. Thanks.