Our Top 3 Real Estate Investment Pitfalls We Encountered

Life by Design

In this episode, Jessilyn and Brian Persson dive into the top three pitfalls they encountered on their real estate investment journey, offering valuable insights for couples looking to invest confidently and build wealth together. They begin by discussing how important it is to find and connect with a strong support network. They share how their initial lack of knowledge and guidance led to missed opportunities early on. They emphasize the value of connecting with experienced investors who can help you avoid costly mistakes and enable faster progress.

Jessilyn and Brian also highlight the need to set boundaries and maintain focus, advising new investors to commit to a single strategy initially rather than diversifying too early. Building success and knowledge in one area of real estate investing can set you up for success later on when you want to diversify down the road.

The Perssons also discuss the power of delegation, encouraging listeners to outsource tasks that are time-consuming or fall outside their expertise. By valuing their time and focusing on high-impact activities, Jessilyn and Brian found they could accelerate their investment goals without getting bogged down by everyday property management issues. Along with practical tips for managing tenant relationships and protecting boundaries, Jessilyn and Brian share how these approaches contribute not only to their financial success but also to a balanced relationship, inspiring other couples to work together on their investment journeys.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• The 3 Mistakes that Keep High Achieving Couples from Building their Wealth, Freedom & Living a Life they Love

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Contact Jessilyn and Brian Persson | Discover Life By Design:

• Website: DiscoverLifeByDesign.ca
• Instagram: DiscoverLifeByDesign
• Facebook: Discover Life By Design
• Linkedin: Discover Life By Design

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Transcript

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:09] Welcome to the Life by Design Podcast. We are your hosts Jessilyn and Brian Persson. Are you and your partner looking to align your financial goals and build wealth together? Have you ever wondered what might be stopping you from confidently investing in real estate or growing your wealth as a couple? Or why it feels so hard to get on the same page financially?

Brian Persson: [00:00:30] That's exactly why we created this podcast and the 'Riches, Relationships, and Real Estate' program to help couples like you invest confidently and achieve both your financial and relationship goals. Are you curious to learn more? Head over to discoverlifebydesign.ca/wealth and download our free guide, 'The 3 Mistakes that Keep High Achieving Couples from Building their Wealth, Freedom & Living a Life they Love'. Let's start building the life you deserve, together.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:00] Today's topic, we are going to focus on the top three real estate investment pitfalls that we encountered.

Brian Persson: [00:01:07] Doesn't real estate come with a whole lot of pitfalls. This is like a trip down memory lane. The not so nice part of memory lane in some cases, but also a really good chance for us to help guide the audience out there. How you can start off, what you can avoid, how you can accelerate your real estate portfolio a lot faster. It's not going to sound like what you think.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:38] Every time there's a failure, there's a lesson in there. We've definitely had a few, few might be a light word, mistakes along our years of real estate investing and throughout our portfolio and our relationship, our communication. You name it, we've probably had areas we've had to work on and improve, but it was because of those lessons that we were able to grow the wealth the way we did, and able to help couples become aligned and start investing in real estate.

Brian Persson: [00:02:09] I think when people hear 'pitfalls of real estate', they hear 'I didn't analyze the numbers properly' or 'I bought the wrong property' or any number of variations on the technical.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:23] Or ' I had a really crappy tenant'. That's an infamous one we hear all the time.

Brian Persson: [00:02:28] I've heard that so much. Let's not forget that for later on in this podcast. It's actually a lot more fundamental than just analyzing the numbers. The technical aspects of real estate is just the how-to. You really got to sort yourself out first before you sort out how to invest in real estate. That's largely what we're going to talk about in this podcast, is the pitfalls of how we didn't sort ourselves out first and all the things that we needed to do to support us in order to actually invest confidently in real estate. The 'how' of it came later.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:07] Yeah, it did. To roll into the first pitfall that really got us, and that was the lack of knowledge and support we had when it came to investing in real estate. We were excited, we both had owned our own property we lived in, so it was not the same as having it as a business or renting it out, but that was probably the extent of our knowledge. When we decided to buy our first rental property together, it was like, this looks like a good idea, let's put an offer in. Let's see if we can get the down payment and get approved for a mortgage and boom, we're in, we're done, we bought it, yay! Now what?

Brian Persson: [00:03:51] Let's go through the mistakes there. It was the wrong type of property, we would have never bought that type of property nowadays.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:58] It was the wrong location.

Brian Persson: [00:04:01] There were so many different things wrong with it. It was the shiny object that was cheap enough that we figured it was a great entry into real estate.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:10] That was the first property we bought together, and we were co-owner also on that mortgage. Not until later we learned to separate that. That was a great lesson to learn from.

Brian Persson: [00:04:22] So why did we barrel headlong into that property? Because we had nobody telling us what to do. We had nobody around us who had done it. All of our friends, just like us, they panicked and struggled their way through their first mortgage and signing the documents with their lawyer, as most people do when they've never bought real estate. It's a daunting thing to deal with all that paperwork. That's where we were, we had done that, but that was the extent of our real estate and our friends and our family had only ever done that too. So where were the people around us that were investing in real estate, had already had some bumps and bruises, had made some of the mistakes that they could have guided us around? We didn't have anybody in our life like that.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:05:14] No, and we also didn't think to look outside of our circle to inquire and seek that kind of help and support.

Brian Persson: [00:05:21] So takeaway number one is the lack of knowledge and support, and that is the first place you should start is, go find your c...