Being an entrepreneur in the real estate industry will test your credible due diligence. At times most unexpected also. But tremendous opportunities exist for us all, and many of them will present what is usually an unseen potential for danger.

Yes, I said it. You know, the word “danger.”

This is danger that hides itself behind the bad decisions you make when you don’t have the proper information to make good ones.

Just consider what I have to say at the moment. When you’re not prepared to make a good decision, you’ll make a bad one.

Are you buying property and then regretting the decision afterward?

Are you finding degradation to your home that you didn’t expect before you owned it?

What about those interest rates?

Are they working out to be higher than foreseen?

Due diligence is about doing your homework and being satisfied with the results and decisions you make afterward. There are a lot of decisions for you to make. That will be ongoing. What doesn’t have to be are disappointments you get from not being prepared.

For those of us in the real estate market, what’s due is research and analysis. Plenty of it.

So I figured, I’ll write up some important factors to due diligence that all of us need at the moment. I want you to succeed and do it with the right analytical skills needed to be successful in real estate.

Intrinsic Value

Homes have intrinsic value.

Just by the very nature of their existence can we deduce value in all properties.

But this same quality can fast become one of those hidden dangers we’ve mentioned. We tend to justify many of our decisions in home buying due to the inherent value that a home has.

This is not enough.

Instead, we need to qualify a purchase based on its status quo: the existing conditions. Simply ask yourself, does this current condition already foster more value than the work needed to it will?

Location, Location, Location

Time and time again have we heard this said. Considering the property’s location is a huge step to protect yourself from those hidden dangers in homeownership.

So consider it one more time with me.

Let’s even say it out loud together: “Location, location and location!”

Supply & Demand

Before jumping furlong into a purchase, you can hedge the potential for danger with an analysis of supply and demand for a given area. It’s a simple strategy, but one that can easily be overlooked. Your indicators for the relative supply and demand of a giving property are often found in two important things.

They are uniqueness and the potential for area revitalization.

Communities are an indicator of value to property. When a community can be seen as unique in positive ways and is also under heavy revitalization, it has the prospect to help you avoid the dangers associated with real estate.

The opportunities are immense but only when you have done your due diligence.

Be sure to stop, consider and do yours.

I look back on it all. I see and consider the success, those important moments and the final decisions I made to put the trust of my future into my own hands. I look back on these and think of my father.

I think of how it started and what ignited the right mentality to not only be a homeowner but to be a thriving entrepreneur.

I think in many ways of my father. …

But I’m not suggesting that parenting is the key to success.

Neither mother or father can take steps for you in the life you live. What I consider about my past just happens to be saturated with memories of wanting success and memories of an important person helping me to understand what those dreams I had meant.

I admit, I was an ambitious young lady and often had ideas suitable to the blooming business types.

Without my father’s help, I was lost and abandoned. What may surprise you is that it was through my father’s failures that my greatest lessons in life were learned. Being an entrepreneur today is no different.

I learned from that man that failure is a part of it all. It is the way. If I took his failures as who he was, I would miss out on seeing what the pursuit was and is. It’s constant movement, constant attempts and constant readjustments. But failure is not what I want to discuss today.

When I tumbled the little but thrilling thoughts in my mind as a child, I would, as many youths do, present them to my parent. My father in this case.

Thomas R. Bell, Jr. was not the epitome of success that we know of. Because of this, I knew that he couldn’t, within himself, allow me to spoil my own successes. They became the achievements he could never live.

He taught me how to fail.

He taught me how to pursue anyway.

He knew that I had time. So he began to encourage me differently. …knowing that I was receiving from life a baton I would pass on to my own.

For every time I saw something I wanted ,  he would interrupt, “Compare it to at least three other options!” The habit I picked up allows me to prospect homes with accuracy today and in a way I couldn’t have learned in my entire lifetime.

For every one prospect, I now know there are two to three others as comparable. And this is what I want YOU to do. I want you to avoid putting all those eggs in a basket. Trust. …is something built over time, and too many bad decisions destroys it.

This is when I look for other options, and I want you to do the same. You’ll never be able to trust yourself without the comfort of knowing what’s available and buying real estate is about knowing what’s out there.

It’s about knowing the options.

So next time a great opportunity comes to you, do one simple thing to empower yourself. Consider at least three other options. I already know they exist.

I want you to take perspective of property today. This perspective is not about buying land, a home, condo or any equity based investment.

And I know, this is what we do, so bear with me for a moment.

I don’t even want you to consider down payments, foreclosures or shorts sells. Today, I want you to accept a different outlook.

One that improves the odds, increases the bottom line and more importantly, gives you something to live for.

When I suggest that your greatest power as a homeowner is in trusting yourself, I’m suggesting something greater than financial returns and a sound opportunity.

There is a center and balance to life that’s necessary for all wealth and success to stand upon. If it’s not there, the resulting lifestyle drains anything you accomplish or any money you make.

Now. …let me put it to you in a simpler way.

Your success will be short lived without quality of life.

The result of quality in the life you live creates three awesome attributes I don’t think you should live without. With a healthy quality of life, you easily obtain a legacy, a lineage and an undying integrity in your life experience from day to day.

But you may have caught on to a paradox brewing.

A legacy, a lineage and integrity are found at the heart of a true home. These are the three components of trusting in who you are and what you’re capable of.

So as we advance our portfolios, sell multiple properties and purchase on the low, let’s be reminded of how much quality is involved. My objective today is for you to see the values of home AS the actual investment you make.

Not the house itself.

Those values? They inevitably hold us accountable to buying property.

A whole lot of property!

Didn’t I mention a paradox in all of this? I made sure my editor kept that in.

It’s been over 10 years since ownership of my first property. It didn’t immediately bring money. Years passed before seeing a real return in equity in fact. What it brought was the security I’m speaking about at the moment.

That message is one where the edification of legacy, lineage and integrity are an awesome foundation for real estate success.

If you can build a brand and life on these principals, you will inevitably become a huge purchaser of land.