A.B.L. (Always Be Learning)

I just ordered a book from Amazon, Commercial Real Estate Investing for Dummies. The title pretty well sums up my lack of knowledge on the subject. Last week I was catching up with one of my old friends; they all seem pretty old these days. Since our last phone call, he invested a good portion of his “nest egg” in a small office building located near a county court house in another state. He is happy with the income his property is generating and he is looking forward to watching his investment grow in value. Our conversation peaked my interest. There are really only two ways for the average American to build wealth, the stock market, or owning income-generating rental properties. While I have read a book or two on investing in real estate, my mind always came up with frightening stories that sent me scampering back to index funds and conservative dividend paying stocks.

Closing my eyes, I envisioned buying a small two bedroom home in an undervalued lower middle class suburban neighborhood. My first tenant is a young woman attending a local Bible college. Wait! She falls in love with a biker, who transforms my investment into a crack house. During a gun fight with the local police SWAT team, my house catches on fire and burns to the ground. So far, the idea of renting office space to a couple of legal firms, seems—safer.

I want to learn more about this subject.

My whole life I have wanted to learn more about something or the other. As well as completing two bachelor’s degrees, one with a double major, I have attended 17 for credit college courses funded by my employers on my time, 10 of those classes led to my MS. I have taken a variety of life enrichment courses from calligraphy to the National Guild of Hypnotists’ certification training. In addition, I have studied subjects like investing, finance, comparative religion, Tai Chi, and even a little bit about the law on my own time and dime.

At my age, I have regrets, both for what I have done and what I have failed to do. I am not a perfect person and I don’t live in a perfect world. However, I don’t regret any of the studies I have undertaken over the course of my lifetime. Some of these undertakings, like my BS in Mechanical Engineering, changed my life in a measurable way. Some of my efforts did little but make me a more entertaining guest at the dinner table, but all of them made me a better person and allowed me to live a fuller life.

In the first five years of retirement, I have felt like I have been slipping a bit, not learning enough. I thought about this subject as I went for my morning walk on the campus of my first Alma Mater. It isn’t quite true. My wife and I lost three parents in five and a half years. I have learned a lot about wills, power of attorney, taxes, probate, advanced directives, and hospice care. Now that chapter of my life, one that we will all have to face at some point, is drawing to a close. It still might take up to a couple of years to sort out every last detail, but the heavy lifting is almost finished.

I can face the future, start learning something new about this wonderful world, a world that seems more interesting and alive than it did in the waning years of my career. Neither my body or my brain works quite as well as it once did. I can tell the difference. There was a point in my life when I didn’t tell the same funny story to the same person more than two or three times, but I am thankful to be enjoying good health in a comfortable retirement.

I may or may not ever pull the trigger on my first commercial real estate deal. While I doubt that I will ever become the strip mall king of my new home town, I may, just may, diversify my portfolio into commercial real estate, after I have learned enough about the subject to have an intelligent conversation with someone smarter and more knowledgeable than your servant, the humble author of this blog.

Always Be Learning! Never Stop!