Robert Campbell

Robert Campbell is a real estate advisor and author. His book Timing the Real Estate Market, introduces "The Campbell Method" which successfully employs five key trend indicators to signal the coming peaks and valleys of real estate cycles, to identify the right time to buy and sell.

The book instructs the reader how to predict the major turning points in the real estate market, where to look for signals to gain a higher profit. The book was written to help reduce risk for the professional and novice investors.

Robert Campbell earned a B.A. in Economics from the University of California in Los Angeles in 1969 and an M.B.A. in Real Estate Finance from San Diego State University in 1974. In the last 30 years Robert Campbell has maintained a comprehensive real estate career. He has purchased and sold more than 40 rental properties and developed over 50 homes and apartment units. A licensed real estate broker, Robert has handled the sales and financing for hundreds of clients. He is also a University of San Diego lecturer and his book is used by University of San Diego professor Elaine Worzala in a graduate class on Real Estate Investments.

Robert has been immersed in the world of real estate for as long as he can remember. His father, now retired, was a successful San Diego homebuilder. Robert spent many hours as a child tagging along with his dad to the lumberyard. Later he worked on his father's construction sites to help pay his way through college. Robert learned quickly that there was far more to real estate than dirt lots, concrete wood and steel. He realized that real estate markets run much like a roller-coaster ride. Magnificent peaks are often followed by stunning falls.

He started investing in real estate at age 24 when he borrowed $14,000 from his parents. He used the money as a down payment on a multi-unit apartment house. After cosmetic repairs and raising rent, he sold the property one year later for an $11,000 profit. Although his initial goal was just to make money, he was captivated by real estate investing.

Robert's catalyst to writing "Timing the Real Estate Market" was after losing over $1 million in the real estate market in 1989. He was caught off guard, completely unaware it was time to get out of the real estate market.

A strong, solid piece of advice when it comes to real estate and life in general is, don't bet everything or play with all your chips on the table on any one investment. Know when to fold and get out of the game. Having an exit strategy is critical to long-term success because nothing stays up forever. Campbell had made a lot of money and then lost it all. On his way back up he discovered a way to help him and others by discovering how to track the real estate market, so you know when to get out.

There are plenty of get rich quick schemes but Campbell wants to teach people a different strategy, namely that slow and steady wins the race. Robert doesn't promise you'll be rich in the next week. He promises you will make big profits with low risk if you buy at the bottom of the market cycle, ride the cycle higher and then sell at or near the peak. In his book he shows you the key indicators to help you do this.

What Robert has learned is that with experience and age comes wisdom. Anyone who hasn't experienced two or three cycles of real estate probably doesn't have the respect they should for what good and bad markets can do for you, and to you. There are many steps in the learning process. Seek out the number one strategic approach, to follow as many markets as you can. And after a real estate market has become depressed and prices have dropped, use Robert's key indicators. Buy six months before the market is likely to start rising again. The reason for this advice is simple: you can get stuck in a downward spiral for years if you are not careful.

The most important quality necessary to be successful in real estate is patience, to wait for the right opportunity to buy. If people don't have a plan there won't be any consistent profits. Without a plan, you can get lucky some of the time but eventually your luck will run out. Robert wants people to know that his formula for tracking real estate in the Southern California real estate market has a success rate of over 80%. Knowing the best times to buy and sell is a tremendous help in building financial security. His favorite strategy is buying real estate in distressed markets; it's the most opportunistic time to buy to produce the greatest profits with the least amount of risk.

Another key piece of advice that has helped Campbell hold on tight while riding the real estate roller coaster is the wisest people learn from their mistakes. Make sure to rebuild using the knowledge gained from the fall to assist in the climb back to the top.