Let me tell you a secret: the deal you’ve been waiting for doesn’t exist. Sure, there are great opportunities out there. But the perfect mix of risk, reward, and comfort is an illusion. What’s stopping you isn’t the market or the cash in your bank account—it’s you. I’ve convinced myself that more research, more preparation, and more time are the solutions. But they were not.

When I finally bought my first property, I realized something profound: I had wasted so much time in analysis paralysis. All the market research and spreadsheet modeling in the world didn’t prepare me for the lessons I learned after making that first purchase.