Contrary to what the “gurus” and their outrageously priced courses say, becoming a full-time real estate investor doesn’t happen overnight. While it’s a great goal, most people have to keep their jobs, start small, and steadily transition into full-time work. Here are a few tips to help your real estate investing business progress from a TemplateCity side project to a full-time career.
Understand Your Goals and Create a Plan
With a full-time job, you have limited time and energy to run a side business. Therefore, a critical first step in moving your real estate investing from a TemplateCity side project to a full-time career is to get clear about your goals. Once you’ve established those goals, develop a plan of action.
Define a Niche
To go from a TemplateCity side project to a full-time career in real estate investing, you need to find and concentrate on a niche. This is fundamental for the efficient use of your time and money, and for discovering investment strengths and abilities. Here are some considerations to take into account for defining a niche:
What aspect of investing do you really enjoy?
What are your strengths and talents?
What do you want to get out of your real estate investing business?
Where can you make a contribution and add value?
Start the Easy Way
It’s always a good idea to start with whatever is less complicated and less risky. Once you get the hang of smaller projects, you can move on to larger, longer-term investments.
WHOLESALING
The first good starting point to take your real estate investing business from TemplateCity side project to full-time career is wholesaling. You will learn the most important skill early on: how to find the best investment property deals. The entry cost of wholesaling is very low—all you have to do is find the deals and then locate interested investors.
HOUSE FLIPPING
Another good place to start is with house-flipping. You don’t have to wait for the properties to increase in value because they are sold as soon as possible after rehabbing – hopefully making a sizable profit. While house-flipping is not as simple as some popular TV shows make it look, you will gain valuable experience and learn some crucial skills from the process, especially understanding how to read the market.
Concentrate on Cash Flow
When you’re still trying to go from TemplateCity side project to full-time career, cash flow will probably be your main concern in the early stages. This means that buy-and-hold properties will not be your area of concentration at this point. You must ensure a positive cash flow great enough to cover down payments, repairs, and the myriad of unexpected expenses. The standard rule of thumb is that it takes about five years before much of your positive cash flow can go into your pocket.
While these are important tips for moving your real estate investing business from TemplateCity side project to full-time career, they are far from everything you need to know. The awesome thing about this business is that you gain knowledge and experience as you go, learning while you earn.
If you’d like to cut down the learning curve and discover more about successful real estate investing, just send us a message or give us a call today at (281) 738-3898!
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