6 sleeps until Christmas.  This usually means one of 2 things for me…

1) I still have presents to buy for family and friends, or:

2) I have completed all of my shopping.

This year, I am happy to say that I have completed all of my shopping.  Which means that I will be able to avoid the hectic shopping malls during the home stretch of the Christmas shopping season.

This was a busy week for First Rental Property. Video content was re-introduced to the blog.

Monday

What Everybody Ought To Know About The World’s Richest Man

Making money is not important to the world’s richest man.  The most important thing to him is his family.  There are some great lessons that aspiring real estate investors can learn from this remarkable man.

Read the full post here

Wednesday

How To Find Tenants That Pay You On Time

If you have been in the real estate investing game long enough, you will have tenants that won’t pay you.  This is a reality of the life as a real estate investor.  You can however minimize the chances of non payment of rent.  It takes a little bit of planning, but it CAN be done…

Read the full post here

Thursday

How I Became A Successful Real Estate Investor

I became a successful real estate investor because I refused to think like everybody else.  Aspiring real estate investors can become successful as well.  It takes a disciplined approach.  Find out exactly what you need to do to become successful by reading this post.

Read the full post here

Friday

Who Else Wants Birthday Cake?

First Rental Property celebrated it’s first birthday this past Friday. There are going to be some big changes for the blog during  it’s second year.  Read this article to find out what is in store for the blog in the coming year.

Read the full post here

This week’s cool links:

Donald Trump’s Top Three Tips For Dominating Your Niche: Donald Trump is in a league of his own. He is a real estate developer extraordinaire. He has specific strategies that he executes with great precision. These strategies have helped to make him a real estate giant.

Best Regards,

Neil Uttamsingh

PS: If you like First Rental Property, don’t keep it a secret!  Tweet this article or share it on Facebook.

PPS: Subscribe to First Rental Property and sign up for The First Rental Property Newsletter.

Greetings Everyone,

I am particularly interested in the topic that I am writing about today.

Today I am going to talk about,

Financial Intelligence a.k.a. Financial IQ

It is believed that in order to be successful as a real estate investor, you have to have real estate knowledge.

This goes without saying…You definitely need knowledge.

The more knowledge you have, the better you can become as a real estate investor.

Many believe that in order to gain more knowledge with regards to real estate investing, you need to join real estate investment groups.

This is a very good strategy to take as you are able to network and learn from the experience of other real estate investors.

However, you must be aware that real estate investment groups can be a trap.

These group can be a trap for many aspiring real estate investors because they serve as a ‘crutch’. Many wannabe investors join these groups and think that just because they have joined an investment group, they are magically going to become so much smarter with respect to real estate investment, and be able to instantly make, one million dollars…

My friends, this is not true.

Being associated with a real estate investment group, does absolutely nothing for you.*

*YOU are the one who has to be in control of you destiny. As such, YOU have to be in control of increasing your  financial IQ.  No investment group will do this for you.  You have to do this yourself.

You have to take the initiative to further yourself by increasing your financial IQ independent of these investment groups.

To quote Donald Trump,

“Good investing requires financial intelligence. Billionaires are often blessed with a high financial IQ. Most of them could be considered financial geniuses. But your financial IQ is not a fixed number, and you can improve it each and every day. My financial IQ is constantly improving as I watch over my many businesses and my staff. I work hard to make sure that they remain assets, not liabilities, and you should look at your holdings in the same way”

As straight forward and common sense as this concept may seem, it is not straight forward and it is not common sense.

The reality is that many people do in fact use real estate investment groups as their real estate ‘crutch’.

Just by being a member, they think that that is sufficient action required in order to become a smarter real estate investor.

I personally came to the realization myself that I was relying too heavily upon my investment groups for Financial knowledge.  I quickly realized that I was not putting in enough of my own time in order to increase my financial intelligence.  This is a fatal error.  Once I realized this, I made a push to increase my intake of real estate related materials.

Below I have listed the two changes that I have made, in an effort to increase my financial intelligence.  I recommend that you make 2 changes as well in order to increase your financial IQ.

Here are the changes that I have made:

1) I am going to focus more of my time reading The New York Times Business and Real Estate section.  Located on this site, there is great information on what is happening both in the real estate and business world.

2) I am going to spend more time reading the blog of John Fedro, a.k.a. J-Fed. John is a fellow blogger who invests in mobile homes. This is a concept that I am interested in and want to learn more about.

In summary, I realized that I was relying too heavily on my real estate investment groups for financial intelligence.

As a result, I am making sure that I take the bulls by the horn and proactively educate myself each and everyday in order to increase my financial IQ, just like The Donald recommends.

If you are serious about increasing your financial intelligence, and you are interested in investing in real estate, I encourage you to do the same as well.

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