Church and Real Estate Investing

Religion Alert: If you are an atheist or otherwise offended by the mention of religion, this post is NOT for you. Please skip it and check back tomorrow.

We had a very busy weekend. With one practice and 3 performances of our church's Easter Play, there was not a lot of spare time. The Easter performance was a great success. Our church normally has an attendance of about 1,000 on most Sundays. This weekend, we had nearly 2,000 people in attendance.

I was struck by the similarities between the way many people treat religion and the way many people treat real estate investing.

First, with religion, many people get hot on God around Christmas and Easter, but don't follow through the rest of the year. With real estate investing, people get hot on real estate for a short period of time, but most don't follow through to the point of even buying their first property.

Second, while many people attend church, only a few people are actively involved at their church. It is often said that 10% of the people do 90% of the work and I've found that to be very true. This is very similar to real estate investing. Although many would LIKE to be successful real estate investors, the vast majority are not willing to do the hard work that is necessary to be successful. It is possible to build significant cash flow and wealth with a rental property business, but most people will simply not put forth the effort to get the job done.

Finally, I have noticed that people want something for nothing. Fortunately, in Christianity, salvation is free and requires no hard work or significant study. However, that is not true of running a rental property business or other real estate investing. Even though many want to be rich without work or effort, that simply does not happen (although it sounds good on a TV infomercial or at a free guru seminar). If you aren't willing to commit to a LOT of study and work, you will not succeed in the rental property business.

I believe that we are finally going to get into our summer groove this week. I spent the morning trying to determine which campground we would be visiting this weekend. We will be visiting relatives near Springfield Ohio and have decided to stay at the Urbana campground. Fortunately, the weather is supposed to improve this week and I am REALLY looking forward to a 4-day weekend of visiting with relatives, camping, motorcycle riding, bicycling, cooking out, and FUN!

After lunch, I did a little work on one of our apartments, replacing some damages ceiling tiles. This should have been a 30 minute job, but the 16 inch (staple-type) tiles are out of production and therefore I had to go to Plan B. In this case, Plan B was to make my own tiles out of 1/2 inch drywall. It was certainly more work than simply buying the tiles, but I got it done!

After the ceiling tile repair, I mowed the grass at one of our apartment buildings. It has a relatively small yard and takes less than 30 minutes to mow. By the time the mowing was complete, I had already worked about 3 hours and that was enough for today. I've got to admit that my mind was more on camping than rental properties.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day and I'm looking forward to a bike ride!