First Rental Property

I have got the perfect analogy for you.

Think of your real estate team as a professional sports team…

No wait….

…Think of your real estate team as a professional baseball team.

Given the fact that most of the readers of First Rental Property are from North America, many of you are familiar with the sport of baseball.

For those of you that are not from North America and unfamiliar with the sport, baseball so happens to be my favourite sport.  I am told by others that it is a very difficult sport to understand.  It is a sport that has many rules.

If you are unfamiliar with the sport try your luck at it by reading and learning some of the rules of baseball.

Now let’s now get to the heart of the matter.

Your real estate team is very similar to a professional baseball team.

In previous posts I have talked about the members of a real estate team.

Real Estate teams can be big or small.  Despite the size of the team, there should be one commonality with every real estate team.  That is…they should always be changing.

In baseball, players come and players go.  Managers come and managers go.

With regards to your real estate business, you should also have team members that come and go.  If team members on our real estate team are not performing at the standards that you need them to perform, then you should dismiss them from your real estate team.

In professional baseball, you have an owner of a baseball team that calls all the shots.

In Toronto, Rogers Communications is the owner of The Toronto Blue Jays.

In New York, the late George Steinbrenner was the owner of The New York Yankees.

The Owner

A a real estate investor, is like the owner of a major leauge basball team.  You are the one in charge.  You ultimately have all of the authority.  You assemble a team of great people around you in order to make your organization (or real estate business) a great success.

The General Manager

In baseball, the General Manager works towards ensuring that all facets of the team are in working order.  The General Manager goes out and finds new talent to bring to the team, trades players, and provides direction to the Manager of the Team.

The General Manager would be comparable to your Real Estate Lawyer and/or Real Estate Accountant.  Both the Real Estate Lawyer and Real Estate Accountant should be two very influential members of your real estate team.  They can provide you with a lot of key insights, and may even recommend and bring in other individuals into our team in order to make it stronger, such as a quality book keeper.  The same happens in baseball when a General Manager may bring in a new player in order to help the team to perform at a higher level.

The Manager

The Manager of a baseball team is comparable to your property manager.  The Manager manages the day to day operations of the baseball team.  The manager provides direction to and coaches players.  The Manager is lower on the food chain when compared to the General Manager.  As is the same with real estate investing.  The property manager is viewed as being lower on the food chain than the Real Estate Lawyer or Real Estate Accountant.

“Lower on the food chain” meaning that they are considered to be less of a trusted advisor when compared to the Lawyer and Accountant.

Bench Coach, Bullpen Coach, Pitching Coach, and Hitting Coach

These coaches are lower on the food chain when compared to the Manager.  These coaches can be compared to the various trades people on your real estate team, such as painters, plumbers, and electricians.

If you have property management on our rental property, your property manager (Manager) is in constant contact with tradespeople. (Bench, Bullpen, Pitching, Hitting Coach)

The Bench, Bullpen, Pitching, and Hitting Coach generally receive all of their direction and instructions from the Manager of the Baseball Team.  Much would be the same in the real estate investing arena, as the property manager would give all of the direction to the tradespeople, as to what repairs and maintenance need to be completed.

Scouts

In baseball, you have scouts.  These people search out talent on other teams and get the know the competition inside and out.  They are the eyes and ears of a baseball organization.  They do a lot of research and know all of the good, great, and terrible players.

Your fellow real estate investors are comparable to scouts.  Your fellow investors are everywhere you are not.  They are working with other tradespeople, other real estate lawyers, other real estate accountants and other property managers.

At the end of the day, your real estate investor peers share information with you.  In conversation, they will tell you about all of the great members of their real estate team, and they will also tell you about all of the members of their team that are not performing very well.

As a result, if you hear of someone who is tremendously talented in their given profession, you would want to bring them over to your real estate team.  For example, if you hear from a fellow real estate investor that they are working with a fantastic real estate accountant, and your real estate accountant happens to be sub par, you will want to make a change.  You may decide to dismiss your current real estate accountant from your team due to the fact that they are under performing and bring on board to your team the services of the excellent accountant that was referred to you by your fellow real estate investor.

So you see, fellow real estate investors are indeed your scouts.  They are your eyes and ears as to what is going on with all of the other key players in the real estate investing industry.

So what do you think of my analogy?

Is a real estate team REALLY just like a professional baseball team?

Tell me what you think by leaving a comment below.

Best Regards,

Neil Uttamsingh

ps: No matter what anyone tells you, you NEED a strong real estate team in order to succeed as a real estate investor.  Sign up to my blog to learn how to build a great real estate team!  Enter your e-mail address on the left hand side of the blog.