The last radio show of each month I invite, on my Ask Christina First Radio Show, a real estate expert. This month I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend and teacher Bruce Norris again. Bruce will be speaking at my
FIBI Pasadena meeting on April 19th on the topic,
Stay Put or Cash Out. Bruce is an active investor, hard money lender, and real estate educator with over 35 years of experience. He has been involved in over 2,000 real estate transactions and he is renowned for his ability to forecast long-term market trends.
Bruce was 28 when he started in real estate after learning from a friend who thought he had potential. His friend had a woman who responded to a foreclosure ad and they bought her house at a 40% discount and Bruce became excited about real estate. He'd had his license for one day when he was hired and in his first 30 days he bought 30 houses and became the number one buyer at his firm.
I asked Bruce what made him so hungry and want to pursue real estate and he shared that he saw a chance at a different life. He was able to go from making $30,000/year in hardware sales to making $30,000/month. He had the skill and once he got the tools, (and as a man who was a father at age 17 who needed to provide) he wrote his goals down and stuck to them. Bruce used that same determination to obtain his black belt as an older man and says the journey of getting better and getting back up after getting knocked down helped him in real estate and life.
I shared with Bruce a saying my sister says about herself, which is that she "may not be the brightest match in the box, but she works the hardest," because I consider Bruce to be an economic genius who works very hard. He says what helps him is when he looks at a chart it means something to him that it doesn't mean to an economist because who wasn't part of the beating him and others in real estate took during that year. Bruce said he only has a high school diploma, but he's well-prepared and uses what he's lived through in business to look at forecasts and understand the numbers and charts better than a person with a Ph.D. could. As a statistics nerd, Bruce says putting together economic updates is a passion for him.
Getting away from how you feel is important, Bruce said because although he loved everything owned in 2005, he had a chart that said in a year or two what he owned would be awful to have. Fear was everywhere, but he didn't go by feelings, only the numbers. He was seeing indicators that told him certain markets weren't going to keep sliding, but that they were going to go up. "It didn't matter if I bought it at the bottom, the decision was, can I afford to hold this until it makes sense to retail and will it cash flow until it gets there. What you do in 2018 is different for you than it will be for me... depending on things like your age, what cycle of life you're in, and what your capacity for risk is."
Bruce will be talking about life decisions and that he expects the next cycle will be closer to a rollover in our FIBI meeting. Join other Pasadena-area real estate investors at our For Investors By Investors meeting (FIBI) held the third Thursday of each month at 7pm at:
Courtyard by Marriot, 180 North Fair Oaks Ave. Pasadena, CA. Door fee for this meeting is $20.00.
The Pasadena FIBI group provides an environment for active and informative peer discussions, expert presentations on relevant topics, and networking. All FIBI meetings support a NO SELLING policy, allowing investors--whether seasoned or beginner--to be free about sharing their real estate passions without sales pitches.
Each Pasadena Real Estate FIBI meeting includes brief member introductions intended to identify areas of interest and possible opportunity, industry experts presenting information and experience on a variety of relevant real estate topics, and open networking sessions to enhance the value of coming together to learn. Twice a year we include an Economic Update and a review of Market Conditions. Our meetings are fun, engaging, and informative.
You can contact Bruce at www.thenorrisgroup.com or you can contact the Norris group at 951.780.5856.