The secret to Real Estate Investing in Reno & beyond

I was stunned by a phrase that I came across January of last year.  I read it in a book ( one of the most highly acclaimed books of the century) by M. Scott Peck entitled ' Road Less Traveled' 

It said, ' successful people are inquisitive people' (Wiki: Inquisitive)

Just what is an inquisitive person?
-Eager to acquire knowledge, Too curious (I like this),overly interested; nosy

I thought about what he said.  I went through my life and tried to assess the qualities of all the successful people I've spent time with (in books and real life).

Here they are: My folks (raising four kids,6 species of rare birds,2 German shepherds and a successful business), Dan Wyatt (read: my last post), David Ogilvy (Founder of Ogilvy & Mather, 'Father of Modern Advertising'), Claude Hopkins (Father of Scientific Advertising), William O'Neil (Founder of Investors Business Daily, creator of CAN SLIM system. One of the most successful investors of all time ) True enough the number one thing these people have in common is that they are all INQUISITIVE. (mother:'who is she??')

The word inquisitive comes from the root word Inquire. To ask. To be unsatisfied with your current state of knowledge. Being honest enough to realize that you do not have the answer and you want to know what it is.  You want to understand.

I read a book called Good to Great by Jim Collins. He made a research on Great companies run by great leaders and how their great decisions (ultimately changing their course from being a good company to a great one) were made.  He said that great decisions were made though constant debating,questioning and constructive arguments. Every single person in the decision-making process wanted to understand the problem,challenge or opportunity.  The leaders of these Great companies weren't necessarily the smartest people in America.  But they sure wanted to see the whole picture.  They were inquisitive.

If you read my last article: Pride & Ego, why investing is difficult
I shared my story of making a huge mistake in investing.  We did not do our research, we did not ask enough questions to fully understand what we were getting into. Ultimately, costing us tens of thousand of dollars.

But after waking up from our foolishness.  We decided to investigate  that lead us to our widely unpopular decision of choosing to lose money in order to cut our losses short (at that time).  Allowing us to sell the houses and consequently avoiding severe & damaging losses.

Now, many people see us as the 'gurus of real estate' (predicting the future of the market) some sort of a psychic.  We are not.  Far from it.  Both Joe and I are average students. We never made the honor rolls.  But one thing we desired to do is be more inquisitive about what the Reno real estate market was doing.  We constantly ask questions,  " what's the market doing?, How is it behaving? What's the score in the existing home sales?"

This 'questioning of ourselves' and being 'nosy' about the market has made all the difference in the world. 

It is indeed the secret to investing.