Ron LeGrand has been at this real estate thing a long time. He started back in 1982 – broke, bankrupt, and clueless.
No idea what he wanted to be when he grew up. But he knew it wouldn’t have anything to do with fixing cars, which is what he was doing at the time.
He got into real estate kind of by accident.
Quickly figured out, hey, I can actually do this. With a little creativity, he found a way around his lack of credit and cash.
Bought his first house. Then a second. Then a third.
Next thing ya know, 1,000. Then 2,000.
“And I don’t even know how many houses I’ve bought today,” he says. “I quit counting many many years ago.”
“So I’ve become pretty good at buying and selling houses,” Ron continues.
“I’ve also been teaching it for the last 25 years, all across North America and in some countries that I’ve never even been to.”
Safe to say, Ron LeGrand is the grandfather of real estate gurus.
But why real estate investing?
“Well, you’re gonna have to make money on your own, rather than rely on a job, if you’re actually going to be successful,” Ron explains.
“At least, if you define success as making a lot of money, that is.”
“I’ve learned a long time ago,” Ron says, “that the best way to predict the future is to create it.”
“So, what I teach my students is, let’s focus on cash flow first. Because without the cash flow, we’re not gonna build real wealth. We’ve gotta get through today first.”
“And I want ’em to make a lot of money,” Ron adds, “a lot more than they need to live on.”
“And real estate is a great vehicle to do that with.”
“And in fact, it’s one of the very few businesses that I’ve ever seen that I can start without an investment of capital and without taking a lot of risk.”
“I used to own a steak and seafood restaurant,” Ron remembers. “It cost $1 million to open that thing.”
“Had it open for about a year and decided, that’s not how you make money, and so I closed that.”
Compared to real estate, well, there is no comparison. The restaurant was expensive, risky, time consuming, and stressful.
Ron was constantly putting out fires and babysitting his employees.
Not the case with real estate.
- Ron’s a one-man show.
- Very little overhead.
- He can create tens of thousands of dollars per deal – with hardly any risk.
- He can run the entire thing from home.
- Make the income he deserves.
- And still have complete freedom to do what he wants with his days.
“So it’s a very unique business,” Ron says, “as long as it’s done properly.”
“There’s only three ways to lose in my world.”
“Number one, you can write a big check. But if you don’t write a check, you can’t lose the check; it’s not rocket science. We don’t write checks to buy houses.”
“Number two, go to the bank and borrow money. That’s the worst thing you can do,” he preaches.
“Third thing is, we don’t make promises we can’t keep. We help people in and out of houses. We’re doing a great service.”
When you leverage technology and tools and virtual assistants, there’s very little left on your plate.
Your job is to make decisions, Ron says. Not to spend all your time doing the grunt work.
Use your free time to keep learning new things.
It may sound self-serving since Ron sells a variety of real estate courses, workshops and masterminds, but it’s true.
Regardless of what profession you’re in, the cliche has been proven: the more you learn, the more you earn.
And I think Ron’s resume makes him a heckuva mentor.