Over the years we have seen many property experts come to the fore, build up a significant following and often lead their followers down some very lucrative paths. There is nothing wrong in following somebody who was been there, done it and bought the T-shirt but you need to ensure that you learn along the way. A property investment strategy which worked perfectly 10 years ago may be effectively defunct today having been replaced by another strategy.
Listen to the experts
One trap many people fall into is listening to experts they believe wholeheartedly and discounting those who perhaps go against the trend. It is all good and well listening to those who have the same principles and the same ideals as you but why not expand your reading to include those with different ideas? If you are determined to go down a particular path then some experts will not appeal to you, and you may disagree completely with their ideas, but what is the harm in seeing what everybody else is saying?
Never stop learning
As we touched on above, the worldwide property market today is very different to that of 20 years ago and even a decade ago. Information moves more quickly, funds are more available if you know where to look for them and there are different strategies and ideas emerging on a regular basis. You will notice that the long-term successful property experts “never stop learning” and will take in new ideas, new strategies and learn to adapt and consider them against the more traditional ideals. The day that we stop learning is the day that we might as well stop investing because those who “think they know it all” are very often the ones who are priming themselves for a significant fall.
Think for yourself
It may sound a little bit simple to say you need to “think for yourself” when investing in the property market, but this is perfect sense. If you simply follow the experts without thinking why you are taking such action you will never learn anything and on some occasions you could be heading for a fall. There is nothing wrong in going against the trend, perhaps going against the experts you follow and thinking for yourself. There may be occasions where you miss out because you thought differently to the experts, perhaps market trends and conditions were changing, but you need to feel comfortable when investing your own money.
Monitoring the markets
The Internet has changed the way that property investors monitor markets they are active in and ones they are seeking to gain exposure to. In the olden days it was more a case of “who you knew not what you knew” but information moves so quickly in the Internet age that you can access almost anything via the Internet.
Perhaps the only downside of the Internet age is the speed at which information is available often prompts people to make a snap decision. If you believe a trend is changing then by all means take some form of action but to make this decision on a relatively short timescale is dangerous. Short-term trends do not always impact medium to long-term trends and sometimes reacting too quickly can prove to be an expensive mistake.