It’s not an easy thing to change the way people think, especially when the belief they’re holding so tightly onto is as ingrained as investment philosophy. Most of us grew up listening to well-intentioned but misinformed advice from parents or mentors about how we should dollar-cost-average our way into the stock market and hold the position forever. At one point in history, that might have constituted “sort of okay” advice but that time has long since passed. Unless your portfolio is loaded with millions of dollars, today’s speculator driven stock market is liable to be a long term exercise in frustration.

If the stock market can’t be trusted, how’s a hard working American to put his money to work? The phrase you’re already familiar with, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog in the first place, is income property. And as a real estate professional, it’s time to consider every customer a potential income property investor who just might not have realized their destiny yet.

How do you take the average home buyer and turn him into an income property investor? It’s simple. Like Cuba Gooding Jr. screamed to Tom Cruise in the excellent film Jerry Maguire, “Show me the money!” In this case, you need to show them the money in the form of specific properties available for purchase around the country.

You may have noticed we’ve been featuring properties in these articles, complete with all the pertinent details like cash flow and purchase price. Your job is to take this information and educate someone who is ignorant about the profit potential inherent in this method of investing, and turn them into a true believer. There’s not a much better feeling in this world than to witness the transformational moment when someone finally “gets” it and realizes there is a legitimate way to create wealth without throwing themselves on the sharpened swords of the Wall Street barons.

What many people see as a serious barrier to becoming an income property investor, purchase price, is normally easily overcome when they realize that many quality investment properties abound for less than $100,000, and that these often come with a positive cash flow of several hundred dollars per month. It’s easy to point out the excellent benefits of income properties but far more effective to show them an exact property and say, “Here, this could be yours today.”

The AIPIS Team

Flickr / PoYang