Lessons from Batman – Core Truths

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Last night I went down to Consolidated Theaters at Ward in Honolulu to take in the new Batman move, The Dark Knight. I grew up with the old Batman TV show of the 1980s with Adam West as the Caped Crusader. Sure, it was the corniest thing on TV with all the ‘BAM’s and ‘POW’s everywhere (and who can forget the ridiculous bomb scene!), but it was classic and it sure kept my attention. Even today, I could stop and watch an episode and thoroughly enjoy it.

While I liked the first two Batman movies by Christopher Nolan, this latest one left me wanting more. It was too messy and clumsy for my taste and, while featuring the requisite Bat-gadgets and villains, wasn’t really well kept together. It meandered and didn’t seem to have a definite focus, as if it forgot what made the first movie so successful.

So what does Batman have to do with hunting down real estate deals? Great question.

Sometimes staying classic is the best avenue to success, in both real estate and life in general. It’s very easy in today’s tech-forward world to get caught up in the latest bells and whistles (and utility belts?) and forget what makes the industry really move forward — people and proven methods.

Sometimes you just have to go back to the well. As a real estate investor, that can mean spending more time building relationships with realtors instead of reading article after article on mashable (a site I like, btw) about the latest iPhone tools or social media networks, and more time researching properties already on the MLS instead of poring over documents at the county courthouse. Savvy investors have known how to make money in real estate for decades — they didn’t need Facebook and Google+ to figure it out. Old-fashioned meet-and-greets, standard direct mail and hard work will always be part of your real estate success plan.

That’s not to say you should ignore modern advances — there’s a wealth of tools to be used that were simply not around before. The business being done on LinkedIn alone (put your LinkedIn results on turbo with THIS) far surpasses what previous generations were able to achieve via all other means (I’m really beginning to love LinkedIn, btw).

But staying true to roots, being classic in the truest sense, is a virtue that could serve many real estate investors well who tend to get caught up in less profitable activities. Tech can certainly expand and facilitate one’s business, but real estate is ultimately driven by people.