# What would you tell yourself 5 years ago?

**URL:** <https://forum.retipster.com/t/what-would-you-tell-yourself-5-years-ago/1362>\
**Category:** Off-Topic\
**Created:** [May 28, 2020, 11:43pm UTC](https://forum.retipster.com/t/what-would-you-tell-yourself-5-years-ago/1362 "2020-05-28T23:43:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![retipsterseth](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.retipster.com/retipsterseth/32/2538_2.png) [@retipsterseth](https://forum.retipster.com/u/retipsterseth)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 11:43pm UTC](https://forum.retipster.com/t/what-would-you-tell-yourself-5-years-ago/1362/1 "2020-05-28T23:43:30Z")

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Suppose you can send a short message to yourself 5 years in the past.

What would you say?

Any significant lessons about business or life you wish you would’ve known back then?

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**Author:** ![latitude500](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.retipster.com/latitude500/32/1937_2.png) [@latitude500](https://forum.retipster.com/u/latitude500)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2021, 5:51pm UTC](https://forum.retipster.com/t/what-would-you-tell-yourself-5-years-ago/1362/2 "2021-08-02T17:51:59Z")

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BUY MORE HOUSES, THE MARKET IS GOING TO EXPLODE.

And yes, I would yell at myself.

Now that I have that out of the way, I would state that I would tell myself to work “ON” th business and not so much in the business. And to automate the business more so that you can get your time back.

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**Author:** ![retipsterseth](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.retipster.com/retipsterseth/32/2538_2.png) [@retipsterseth](https://forum.retipster.com/u/retipsterseth)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2021, 6:07pm UTC](https://forum.retipster.com/t/what-would-you-tell-yourself-5-years-ago/1362/3 "2021-08-02T18:07:50Z")

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You know, it’s funny… when people hear that you bought real estate during the last recession (anytime from 2009 - 2014), they’ll usually come back with,

> “Wow, you really lucked out! That was a great time to buy!”

But they either don’t remember or simply don’t know what a difficult time it was to be a real estate investor.

This was a time when nobody knew if or when housing values were going to come back. For a while there, it seemed like we’d never find the bottom.

It was almost impossible to get a loan from a lot of banks.

When listing a good property at a good price, it would often sit on the market for **months** before getting a single offer (which would inevitably come in far below the asking price).

I remember seeing many articles from reputable sources talking about how real estate values might be _permanently depressed_ and jobs might _never_ come back, etc.

It seems obvious in hindsight, but there was a ridiculous amount of uncertainty at the time. Even when buying a property with huge upside potential… you never really knew if/when values would go up. Every move felt like a gamble (to me it often did, anyway).

It always seems easy/simple/obvious in hindsight, but it’s much harder to be confident in your decisions when you don’t have the benefit of knowing when and how it’ll all pan out.

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**Author:** ![Arturo](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.retipster.com/arturo/32/2155_2.png) [@Arturo](https://forum.retipster.com/u/Arturo)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 10:13am UTC](https://forum.retipster.com/t/what-would-you-tell-yourself-5-years-ago/1362/4 "2021-08-03T10:13:13Z")

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Jump in US real estate and start from Land.