You probably heard what assuming does for you and me… But, so many are guilty of making assumptions all the time and in real estate investing when you are working with buyers and sellers, making assumptions can kill a deal or prevent you from closing a deal. When you are investing, you have to be very clear about your position particularly when you are talking numbers and assuming what a seller's minimum sales dollar is or what a buyer's maximum purchase price is will only lead to trouble.

Investors who make assumptions on what a seller is thinking or what a seller would do or might do if they say this or say that. And making assumptions is a big mistake because what you would do in a situation could be completely different than what your seller or buyer would do in a situation. So, do not make assumptions for them.  Do not base what you think they may or may not do on what you would or would not do. We all think differently, that is why when trying to get an answer from a buyer or seller you need to ask the same question multiple ways until you get the answer to your specific question.

Don't jump to conclusions; make the individual give you their answer. In reality, there's really no explanation as to why people do what they do. There's no good explanation as to why people kill themselves or why people hurt other people or, the list could go on and on. I've had people walk away from thousands of dollars that they put as a non-refundable option fee to purchase a property. There's no explanation for it.

So, don't try to make decisions based on your assumptions for what other people would do. Run your business with guidelines and then let your sellers, let your buyers make decisions based on the offers that you make them. Do not make assumptions for them because what you or I would not do, they will very likely do.

If somebody asks you, especially realtors might ask you, "Well, who's going to give you their property and then stay on the mortgage?" "Well, obviously not you, Mr. Realtor, but I have dozens of other people here who do." There are plenty of skeptics out there who are too scared to try new and creative ways to buy properties and therefore make the assumption that no one in the world would agree to anything less than the same old boring way of investing. To all the skeptics, there are nearly 4.5 million people in Kentucky where I invest in real estate.

There are about 600,000 properties that have at least one mortgage and close to 300,000 that don't have any mortgage. Now, that means there are about 1 million properties that I can market and try to buy and the odds of finding a motivated seller willing to try creative ways to make a win-win situation for them and me are favorable. If I work with even just 1% of them, that's 10,000 properties for potential deals. Let's take it one step further and for the sake of crunching numbers, I'll make it easy and say I make 10K profit on just 1% of the 10,000 properties (100 properties bought and sold), that's a cool 1 million dollars in the bank. If I make the assumption that I can't find a motivated seller out of those 10,000 properties then I can't even begin to start realizing the million-dollar bank account.

So, don't make decisions based on assumptions. That's all I'm trying to say with this point. What do you think about those odds? I welcome your comments. So, let's make some goals together!