The purpose of this book is not to simply give you all the answers when it comes to your real estate investment, but to encourage you to think. Without the ability to be dynamic in a constantly changing real estate market, the outcome for any investor can be a bleak one. It is also important that you understand the motivation found behind this compilation of materials and advice.
The motivation to educate college students and their parents about the opportunities found through owning vs. renting through college was born from the very same experience we are trying to encourage you towards today—student ownership of real property. The concept of buying real estate for a son or daughter is nothing new to investors. In fact, the financial benefit of buying versus renting has always been a lucrative attraction. However, what few parents and college students seem to realize are the educational benefits and unique experiences that this opportunity provides in addition to the financial rewards. It isn't hard to find books out there on the financial benefits in real estate, what we want you to discover through this experience are the less-tangible benefits of home ownership - benefits that can be summarized in one word “REAL”.
The “Real Life Internship” experience is a practical approach to learning the major fundamentals required for life. Our ultimate desire is for each person to look back on this opportunity with a very clear set of achieved goals—“REAL” goals. So why do I keep writing “REAL” in capital letters? Because this is what we hope you will remember. “REAL” stands for the Responsibility, Experience, Applications and Life lessons that you will gain throughout the process of working through the “Real Life Internship.”
As you progress through the pages of this book and through your years of school, we hope to help you connect the dots—to see the big picture. Our aim is to provide you with experience that will translate into practical skills that will better equip you to enter the real world with an advantage surpassing your fellow classmates’. The goal is that by the end of this “Real Life Internship,” you will have learned to manage people, property, finances and expectations. On top of that, you will have a promising asset with which to launch your next venture!
So, what do you have to gain through a Real Life Internship? As stated before, we have condensed these less tangible benefits into one word: REAL. These aren’t the items often attained from a course-required internship. Those lessons tend to be how to pour the perfect cup of coffee or escape into the wonderful world of data entry. I’m talking about items of REAL value: the Responsibility, Experience, Application and Life Lessons learned along the way.
Webster defines responsibility as “a duty, obligation, or burden.” We define responsibility as “the ability to respond to, and manage a high level of expectations.” Any way you define it, your life will benefit from responsibility. As you leave the security and comfort of the protective walls of your university, it will be this comfort in responsibility that keeps you focused for success in life. Furthermore, it will be the confidence that comes with responsibility that will open doors to unique job opportunities.
This concept is nothing new to us at College Real Estate. While approaching many of the challenges associated with managing property during college, we learned great lessons from our experience.
The goal of this book is to equip you with some of the resources we have created in order to make this experience more substantial. Consider it lesson planning before a test. When we stop for a moment to examine where we are, and glance back at where we came from, it’s the culmination of the experiences that have molded the person we’ve become. College is the place we begin to truly experience things on our own for the first time. As a student landlord myself, the following workbook is some advice I would like to impart to you.