Life is hard. Relationships are hard. Real Estate Investing is hard. Managing your own rentals is hard. Think it's going to be easy to do them all together?
You're going to get kicked in the teeth. You're going to get knocked down. You're probably going to bleed, cry, and question why in the hell you're putting yourself through all this.
So you better have a good reason. Because without a good reason you're going to give up. You're going to choose the easy path out when it feels like the universe wants you to.
We do it for freedom. We do it for our children. We do it so our future is in our hands. Why do you do it? What are your reasons? You should know them.
Floods happen, sometimes you get lucky and it's clean water... Roofs get holes, furnaces quit at the worst times. Tenants can be horrible, contractors can be horrible. You can lose a ton of money and progress in the blink of an eye. People can screw you over, cheat you, take advantage of your kindness and make you feel like crap. People you trust and thought you knew can betray you, deceive you, and make you want to loose faith in humanity.
You work long hours, even after working a full time job. You forgo a lot of the things others are buying and enjoying. People will treat you different. People won't see your struggles and all the work you've put in and judge you or treat you poorly because they think they deserve what you've worked for. It's tuff.
Push Through
Cry, or rage, it helps sometimes. Then get back up. Clean up the water, fix the roof, find a way to heat that unit until parts can be found. You can do it. You might not think so at first but just take it one problem at a time. Find people that have been in your shoes and understand what you're going through. You'll end up on the other side a little bit wiser and strong for the next time.
And there will be next times. My wife and I have been landlords for over 15 years and we don't have the same problems that we used to, but we still have problems. Plenty of them. We're not perfect. We make mistakes, we adapt to changing landscapes, we learn new things, we fail, we make bad decisions, and we still try to help the wrong people sometimes.
But now we know that those things won't destroy us, we recover, we learn from it and keep on keeping on.
You must do the same thing. You can reach your goals. You can get through whatever is happening. It's going to be worth it. I believe in you.
-Billy