4 Steps to Take the Leap of Faith & Start Investing Now

Look, I get it. We live in an information-overload world. We listen to hundreds of podcasts and read numerous stories about how people started in real estate and wonder, “Which strategy is the best? Which market is the best? Which is the best stage of the market cycle to invest?”

Fear of failure resulting in hesitance to invest affects male and female investors alike. There’s even a name for it: analysis paralysis. But if you try to understand the science behind it, you will see why these questions are undermining your ability to get started.

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, talks about satisficers and maximizers: “Satisficers make a decision once their criteria are met; when they find the hotel or the pasta sauce that has the qualities they want, they’re satisfied.” On the other hand, “Maximizers want to make the best possible decision; even if they see a bicycle that meets their requirements, they can’t make a decision until they’ve examined every option.”

If you are stuck in analysis paralysis or “decision quicksand” (another term of Rubin’s), chances are you are a maximizer.

As a recovering maximizer, I can tell you that the adequate decision is better than the never-ending quest for the best decision. As tempting as it is to believe that the best strategy is out there, and the best deal exists and you can find it by just researching deeper, in reality the options in front of you are already great. You might never get to a point where you are able to figure out what the best option is for you.

We often tend to forget that the particular decision we are trying to make is just the first step. In the months that follow, we will encounter numerous other choices and turning points that will change our trajectory and make or break our success story. The current decision is not as important as you think.

Here is a step-by-step process to stop hesitating and move forward with your first deal. Follow these steps, and you’ll be on your way toward building a solid real estate portfolio. I have designed an acronym to help you remember and implement them: “A-B-L-E.”

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