INVESTORS’ CORNER: On the Shoulders of Giants

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“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”.  Sir Isaac Newton

The Charlotte Real community has suffered a great loss with the passing of JC Underwood, 15 year Executive Director of the Metrolina Real Estate Investor Association, 2 time President of the National Association of Real Estate Investors, founder and owner of dozens of companies, and a fifty-year veteran of buying, selling, and holding Real Estate.

I’ve learned a lot from JC, and considered him a personal mentor.  I’ve been buying and selling house for 15 years, so have seen 1 full cycle from Buyer’s Market to Seller’s market.  JC has seen something like 5. The degree of perspective that gave him on the long-term implications of short-term decisions was invaluable, and rarely to be found.  So many times, we need a reminder that the current market cycle will not last forever, and to tailor our long-term plan to accommodate these market cycles. JC had innumerable stories about the “Great Recession” of the 1980s, when so many bank owned properties existed that the government actually had to form a special division just to get rid of them.

His perspective on long-term rentals was also invaluable.  The events occurring this or next year with a single property take on an entirely different meaning when viewed through the eyes of someone who has had extremely similar experiences, but is able to put them into the context of how they affected an investment that was owned for 20, 30, or even 40 years.

Many of us who know a lot of long-term investors know quite a few of what I refer to as “crusty old landlords”, people whose accumulated negative experiences with tenants over decades had, metaphorically, soured the milk of human kindness in their soul to the point where they were distrustful of everyone and every thing.  JC Underwood was living proof that it is fully possible to experience these same lies and mistreatments, and still hold an ultimately positive and kindly view toward the intentions of others, while at the same time, making sure that experience tempered his decisions with caution. JC would have like the old Arab proverb, “Trust in God, but tie up your camels”.  I an many others whose lives he has touch will do our best to successfully follow the trail he has blazed.

Lou Gimbutis is Director of Education at the Metrolina Real Estate Investors Association, which provides education, mentoring, and networking for real estate investing in the Charlotte region.  He can be contacted via his website, https://www.123escapeforeclosure.com.  For more information, visit www.MetrolinaREIA.org.