Let me tell you about one of my very first clients, back when I was brand new in this business. He was a young Navy man — good guy — and he bought himself a property. But here's the thing: he never really had a plan for it. It wasn't set up as a real investment, it wasn't making him any money, and it just kind of... sat there.

About a year in, his life changed. He decided he wanted to head back home — he was from the Dominican Republic — and now he needed out of this property he'd never had a strategy for in the first place. The whole time he owned it, it sat there costing him money instead of earning it. If he'd simply put a tenant in it, that property could have carried itself, maybe even paid him, while he figured out his next move. Instead it was just an anchor.

Now, he got lucky — and I mean lucky. He managed to sell it right before the market shifted. A few months later and that story ends very differently. But luck is not a strategy. The lesson here is two lessons really: know your plan before you buy, and never let a property sit empty when a tenant could be covering your costs. An empty property is a bleeding one.