"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself"
-Eleanor Roosevelt US diplomat & reformer (1884 - 1962)
" In the stock market, history repeats itself. This is because human nature rarely changes"
- (Founder of Investor's Business Daily)
I Made a Promise to Myself: No More Big Mistakes in Real Estate
I vowed this kind of real estate disaster would not happen to me again. Unlike the General Custer at the little Big Horn, I promised myself never to be lulled into a false sense of security about real estate uptrends. Never again would I be so sure about rising property values that I would become mentally lazy and forget how the market can crash and burn like any other market, as the ancient Greeks so wisely observed, I was living proof that....
" Whom the gods would destroy they would first make over-confident"
Furthermore, I promised to never rely on the real estate 'experts.' Based on population and job growth in California, the experts had all predicted continued 'good times' in San Diego real estate right up to the time the bottom fell out of the market in 1990.
To add insult to the injury, guess what the experts said after the market crash? "You should have sold last year" Great advice, huh? this kind of astute financial insight reminds me of Wall Street analysts who- seemingly without fail- tell you to 'sell' only after the market (or a stock) has already plummeted. In either case, advice like this is like a doctor recommending medicine after the patient has died.
What it all comes down to is this: with 20/20 hindsight we are all experts. Then, it is easy to be smart. But 20/20 hindsight doesn't help you in the real world. To manage risk and protect profits, you have to look forward and make decisions. You have to anticipate real estate trend changes-and sell- before the boom turns into a bust.
to be continued..
Resource: 'Timing the Real Estate Market' By: Robert Campbell pages 42-48
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