Shiny Object Syndrome Made Me Lose Over $130,000...

Shiny object syndrome is costly…

How I Lost Over $130,000 from shiny object syndrome

1st case of shiny object syndrome (lost 60K)

Deviating from apartment complexes in Oklahoma to a mobile home park in Alabama. This was a double whammy. Different asset class and different market. I bought a 26 unit in Oklahoma, but had more capital and wanted to buy more real estate. I was deciding between a 50 unit apartment in Oklahoma vs a 200 lot mobile home park in Alabama. I had a team in Oklahoma. I had systems in Oklahoma. I know the market in Oklahoma, but I fell victim to shiny object syndrome and bought the mobile home park.

Mobile home parks are cash cows according to all the podcasts I listened to, right? Fast forward 2 years later, I put the most time, energy, and money into the mobile home park. 80% of my time and effort went into the mobile home park. Why you might ask? MHPs have more moving pieces and people involved, meaning more points of failure, more points of delay, and time is money. Despite this 80% time, effort, and energy, I am selling my mobile home park for a loss of 60K. I put 20% of my time, effort, and energy into apartments and they are all doing better and making me money.

What if I bought the 50 unit in Oklahoma instead of deviating to MHPs in a different market? Probably would be do much better financially and not getting an expensive lesson in MHPs. I kick myself for not buying the 50 unit section 8 apartment complex 2 years ago. Syndrome object syndrome bites hard!

Lesson learned. Stick to 1 market and 1 asset class so for more apartments in Oklahoma.

2nd case of shiny object syndrome (lost 35K)

I bought a $30,000 drop shipping Amazon store from a popular finance and real estate youtuber. According to his videos, you could make $5,000-$10,000 per month passively without much time, energy, and effort. Wow! I can replace my W-2 income without much time, energy, and effort. He even encouraged you to get a personal line of credit to buy his Amazon drop shipping store because you WILL MAKE ALL THE MONEY BACK. But wait, there is more. There is an 18 month money back guarantee. There must be zero risk or so I thought.

What really happened. After setting up my Amazon store, it was passive. Problem was it was passively losing money every month. The operations team was unorganized. We were their test subjects. All drop shipping stores got cancelled on Amazon. There must have been at least 5-10 pivots in the business model. At this point I probably lost $5,000 on top of the $30,000 I put in to start. It wasn’t worth my mental time and energy so I just moved on and took the loss. The popular youtuber shut down his ecommerce business and never admitted to his mistakes to not ruin his online reputation. Only he made money. I am sure all 300 stores he was managing lost money.

Lesson learned. No such thing as quick and easy money that requires zero effort.

3rd case of shiny object syndrome (lost 35K)

I am a pharmacist so it makes sense to open up my own pharmacy with 3 partners who are not pharmacist. Sounds smart right? Not really. I was managing the day to day operations despite working full time. I had a marketing partner who wasn’t that great at marketing. I had a partner who owned 2 pharmacies, but found out he just managed the money, not the actual operations. I had a partner who was good at IT and willing to help as much as possible. Quickly found out that opening your own pharmacy is a dying business so I quit the partnership rapidly and lost my initial seed money.

Lesson learned. Do not start a brick and mortar business that has high overhead costs and require your physical time.

Why do we fall victim to shiny object syndrome?

The first phase is called uninformed optimism. I failed at single family homes, but things will be different with apartments. We think apartments will be easier compared to single family homes, but in reality we are just uninformed and overly optimistic. As time goes on, we get a reality check called informed pessimism. Apartments is much harder than expected since apartments must be operated like a business. Once we are slapped with reality, instead of persisting, we pivot to something new again. New sense of HOPIUM. New sense of energy. New sense of uninformed optimism. Rinse and repeat this process over and over again.

If I just removed all distractions- No MHP. No amazon drop shipping. No pharmacy - and used all that time, energy, and money into apartments, I’d be in a much better financial situation today while being less stressed. Key is less stressed.

Just pick 1 thing that you have an unfair advantage in. It can be anything. Could be single family homes in Dallas, TX or MHP in CA or duplexes in Utah. Mine is apartments in Oklahoma. Commit to that 1 thing for decades and watch your wealth exponentially grow. I now have clarity. All I need are apartments in Oklahoma to build more wealth then I ever dreamed of.

I want you to think, what is my unfair advantage that I can do for the rest of my life?

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