The Doldrums.

1. A state of inactivity or stagnation, as in business or art: August is a time of doldrums for many enterprises.
2. A belt of calms and light baffling winds north of the equator between the northern and southern trade winds in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the weather prevailing in this area.
3. a dull, listless, depressed mood; low spirits.

I love it when words perfectly describe things.

I think I'm overdue for a re-evaluation of my operations, REI-wise. We've been making a reckless number of offers on houses for two months now, and we've had two nibbles. During the second nibble, I felt all the temptations I was warned to avoid with all my might--the temptation to "tweak" the numbers, the temptation to buy too high, the temptation to visit key bankers after hours with a baseball bat and my friend from New Jersey, "Chuckles." Thankfully (I guess) I avoided all these temptations.

I've also watched three properties we thought we could do something with go under contract to other investors. One of the investors got it under contract for what I believe is a very risky price. Is he crazy like a fox, or crazy like, well, a crazy person? I just don't know.

There are several stages in REI, I've discovered. I know or have had some communication with people at every stage. Here's what they are, in my estimation:

1. Elation, optimism and hope: Someone hears about this thing called "wholesaling" or "bird dogging," and decides, after having read all the prerequisite material, that opportunity is knocking and he's going to invite him in. They'll have tea.

2. Education: The REI newb grabs a hold of everything he can get his hands on--books, courses, business cards. He's a regular on REI message boards, and makes grand pronouncements like "I know I can make this work! I can't wait to make my millions!" Some of these guys (ahem...) feel qualified to lecture "W-2" wage donkeys about making peace with the rat race.

3. Fear: the newb investor has not one spare synapse or neural pathway with which to absorb any more REI information. He must now "pull the trigger," but he finds thousands of excuses to put it off.

4. Action: Eventually, the newb does commit to action. He puts out bandit signs, buys ads, sends out postcards and gets magnetic signs for his beater car.

5. Minor success: After a certain period of time, he finds a deal, goes through a torturous aquisition process, makes a ton of mistakes, but comes out with a couple of thousand dollars. Reinvigorated, he redoubles his efforts in an attempt to replicate the success.

6. More success, more knowledge: He learns from his mistakes, streamlines his process, and starts getting more and better deals.

7. Boredom: By now, he's either writing a "system" for newbie investors, or he's looking for new and more exotic projects. Perhaps both. Some go into commercial real estate. Some become lenders. Either way, he's got more cash than he knows what to do with.

Obviously, this is a general overview, but it seems consistent with what I've witnessed. But this represents a relatively small slice of the crowd. My hunch is that out of every 100 newbie investors, 10 of them actually achieve some success, and only 1 makes the kind of money that launches him into "guru status." More often than not, after some bold proclamations and an embarassing amount of money spent, they end up pounding out bitter critiques of the so-called "get-rich-quick" scammers out there.

I know I'm at a critical moment. I've spent a lot of time and stress since mid-July on education, advertising and offer-making. I have nothing tangible to show for it. My mood...well, let's just say I'm somewhere in between stage 4 and 5, "The Doldrums." It's hot, there's no wind, there's no land in sight, and there's about a foot of water in my cabin. I read about people with three or four deals in the pipeline every month, and I wonder just what the hell they're doing that I'm not.

Actually, it's probably a lot. I just need to figure out what that is.

Help me, Jeebus.