I am always being asked. “Doc what advice can you give me that will help me with investing. What tricks of the trade or inside tidbits can you share with me?? The best answer is you need to develop a “toolbox”.

Now before you go nuts scratching your head, let me define the areas of the tool box. The tool box has three areas.

1)In your head tool box: This is all about how your thinking process works when it comes to investing, and more importantly how open minded you are about investing information. Are you willing to think outside the box in order to look at investment opportunities or must the investment fall within a cookie cutter method you having? In your head means you need to read books, articles, partake in discussions, and basically interact with that big grey hunk of goo that is in your skull.

It is about gathering all the info you can in order to be able to think about investing and where it can lead you.

THINK ABOUT THIS: Every book store has some vast collection of books on real estate investing. You should take the time to add them to your reference library at home. Why? Because if some guru writes a book on RE investing that sits on the national booksellers ten best for 35 weeks…what do you think the chances are some one you will deal with has read that book? If you know what factors some one uses to make a decision…you have a better chance of influencing WHAT THEY DECIDE.

2)Your on-line tool box: Most investors use the web daily. Its a great information source, but most investors also have tunnel vision when they are on the web. we get stuck using a few websites that we think are the best at that will cover all our needs. WRONG answer. This causes a type of blindness I call “INFO INPUT SHUT DOWN”.

The answer is very easy it’s called the opt in newsletter/update. Here is how it works.

Simply put you create an email address and when you come across a site you think may be a useful reference you join up for the newsletter they email out. They send it to your “Info email account” and you can go thru the emails as you choose. I must warn you however.

Now dont be to hasty and unsubscribe after the first email. More often then hot the newsletter/updates dont deliver the “meaty info” in the begining…more often then not it comes as a series of newsletters. Look for Investment clubs that offer news letters as well as blog sites, news sites, etc. Any reference sits you can find I recommend bookmarking.

To me most pop up ad based newsletters are a waste of time. I prefer to find the newsletters that are written by people who ACTUALLY invest. I prefer to get reviews of SEVERAL porducts/methods or tools that some one else actually uses. Those to me are the gems that I try to subscribe too.

My favorite online tools/sites are the ones that cost me very little to use/buy or better yet are free to me. I love to find good resource sites. ( I admit freely I normally link them to my own) A good web tool is a great thing to find. Im not refering to another mortgage calculator…I mena that online tool your just dying to try out. When you find them…bookmark them.

3) And last but not least… actual physical, hold in your hand, tools. It can be a great “go by list”. A solid flash light. anything that makes the time in the field looking at investments easier.

Thats about it. so go build your toolbox. pdate it often. Use it daily…and happy investing.

Tags: real estate investing