With a number of strategies at your disposal for building wealth in the property market, it’s easy to get bogged down in what ifs.

FOBO is the latest buzzword to circulate – but what does ‘FOBO’ actually mean? And how do you know whether you have a case of it?

FOBO is the ‘fear of better options’. It’s that feeling of missing out, or wondering whether you’re not quite going down the right investment path – and it’s a predicament that investing property coach and director of The Property Bloke, Wayne Jessup, often sees property investors have to work through.

“FOBO is analysis paralysis. It’s basically a whole heap of procrastination where you think you’re always going to get around the corner and there’s going to be a better property than the one you’re looking at today,” Jessup shares.

It’s also about second-guessing the properties you have and the decisions you’ve made to date.

This is normal and regularly reviewing your property’s performance is a great idea – but it can be problematic if your FOBO is stopping you from making progress towards your real estate goals.

How can you rise above the mind-frame of second-guessing your investment route and regain your confidence?

In this video, The Property Bloke sits down with Your Investment Property magazine editor Sarah Megginson to discuss what causes investors to stall from securing an ideal property through FOBO, and how they can make sure that they don’t let an opportune phase in the market run away from them.

“The biggest risk is missing out on potential growth or potential income from that property,” Jessup shares.

“What I see on a regular basis [from investors] is that once they set up that first property, there’s a lot of regret that they didn’t start earlier.”

Jessup advises investors to connect with professionals who can share their investing experiences with them. By learning from others about how they overcame FOBO or any other similar obstacles that they encountered throughout their investing journey, investors can be guided out of their own delays in investing.

“That will stop your procrastinating because once you see other people [investing in property], in the same financial scenario as you, you feel more confident to take action earlier,” Jessup explains.