Philosophy of Real Estate

Rob Drum · Posted on

Do you use your college major in your profession? A lot of people would say they don’t.

My degree is in Philosophy. You would assume that has nothing to do with being a real estate agent and investor right?

I disagree.

Philosophy is about fundamentals. I’ve always been attracted to understanding the fundamentals underlying everything. I guess that’s kind of weird. But it’s how I look at everything from music to marriage.

It’s definitely how I look at real estate.

I spent 6 years trading stocks full time. What started with a $15,000 account, generated close to $1,000,000 in trading revenue over that time.

A lot of the success I’ve had investing in real estate the last two-and-a half years comes from principles I learned there.

It gave me insight into fundamental market drivers and finance concepts. The applications to real estate have been floating around in my head for a long time.

Now, I’m going to flesh out these ideas in a series of posts.

Here are the subjects I plan to explore in relation to Real Estate:

  1. Liquidity
  2. Leverage
  3. Time Value of Money
  4. Expectation
  5. Risk
  6. Market Structure
  7. Marketing

For each subject I’ll cover

  1. Definition – What on earth does this mean?
  2. Key Concepts – What does this mean for us?
  3. Application to Real Estate – How can we use this? I’ll illustrate with real deals I’ve done.

I realize these may not sound exciting. But, they’re the key concepts I use everyday to make real estate decisions. They’ve helped me:

  • Close 100 transactions.
  • Sell 8,000,000 worth of residential and commercial real estate
  • Grow from 1 rental property to 27
  • Flip 12 houses.
  • Buy an apartment building

This series will be a set of tools to help you make better decisions, faster, and with more confidence. My hope is to open your eyes to a different way of looking at real estate.

These posts are me writing my first book in real time. I’d love to hear questions, feedback, and thoughts. Let me know everything from grammar to title suggestions. If you think this is super boring, you can let me know that too. Please send to robert.h.drum@gmail.com

Thanks for reading!

-Rob Drum