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There are two sides to every story and real estate investing is no different. It's all about risk. Some say it's risky; others say it isn't. Just like everything else, it's all in how you look at it.

Let's look at the side who says it's risky business.

Some people look at investment as a crap shoot. If they get into real estate, or any other kind of investing, they go about it as though they were trying to conjure up some sort of luck. They think that just by being in the game they're doing everything that needs to be done.

Some of these people are lucky. But you have to remember, sometimes people who bet on the horses or the dogs are lucky. This type of investor looks at real estate investing in the same way'pick something at random and hope for the best.

If real estate investing were really done like that, there would be no such thing as a real estate mogul. You would see people who made a lot of money quickly from time to time, and those people would fade into the background like last week's pop stars.

For people who approach real estate investment like that, it is very risky. In fact, they are almost guaranteed to lose a great deal of money.

There is another side to real estate investing. Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad book series, and Ken McElroy, one of his Rich Dad advisers, both say that there is another way. In order to make real estate pay off for you, you have to approach it in a methodical manner.

Sure, these guys have lost money in the past, and probably will in the future. Everyone makes mistakes. But the money they have made on real estate deals far outshines the little bit they have lost in the course of learning the business. That is a far cry from stumbling down the path of financial ruin because you assume it's a crap shoot.

They suggest that you learn as much as you reasonably can before you buy your first property. That means learning to read financial statements, learning the basics of real estate law, learning the markets and learning how to pick out properties. (Actually, McElroy outlines a wonderful method for picking out properties in 'The ABCs of Real Estate Investing.')

What you can't learn on your own, you get a team to help you with.

You have to approach this in a step-by-step manner and not give in to the temptation to leap before you look. You know the saying: 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' Don't rush in to the exciting world of real estate investing, but don't be afraid of it either. Simply learn the terrain as you would if you were going to go walk a foreign countryside for the first time. Learn what is poisonous and avoid it. With that kind of knowledge, you can do anything safely, including invest.