Investing in real estate can be a highly competitive business. Granted, how competitive depends on a two primary factors: your market and your strategy. Real estate investors dealing with a typical buy-and-hold strategy have to elbow through two common obstacles.

These are the market prices and other investors and buyers.

Naturally, markets experience different seasons and fluctuations. For example, after the recession circa 2009, investing in real estate was relatively easy. A lot of people chose to start investing because prices were so dramatically low and foreclosures were plentiful.

At the same time, there was a lot of competition because of the sheer number of investors. Eventually, as prices began to rise and recover

What do you picture when you think of a great real estate investing market?

Depending on who is reading this article, some go to a top-tier market: something like New York City or San Francisco. Despite the fact that these markets are impenetrable for your average real estate investor, they’re the markets that we’re easily dazzled by. And who can blame us? We like glamour. We like pizzaz.

Still others go to smaller markets and the buzz of "middle-america" markets where properties are cheap and plentiful!  

But ultimately, what makes a great long-term real estate investing market, what brings success to real estate investors—the kind of success that allows someone to invest in a glamorous market like NYC—is reliability.

Success isn’t something that comes to us overnight. It takes hard work, dedication, and, no matter how passive our income is: commitment. As real estate investors, we have to invest not just our money into this thing, but our time, attention, and willpower. If you want to succeed in real estate investment, it starts with a solid foundation and by forming good habits.

If you have that base level of knowledge and you develop the follow through with what you know? It’s hard to go wrong.

So, in the interest of success, we’re bringing you seven habits that are essential for staying at the top of your game in real estate investment.

We live in a technological world—it’s evident all around us! Whether we notice it or not, we are constantly connected to smartphones and televisions, working on tablets and laptops, and we can be instantly connected to people thousands of miles away and even on the other side of the world.

Houston real estate has been on somewhat of a roller coaster over the past several years.

If you’ve been following their saga at all, you know that Houston was one of the cities largely spared in the wake of the largest recession in recent history (circa ‘07-09).

Their real estate market never inflated in the same way that many around the country did, so when the market crash occurred, they didn’t have nearly as far to fall.

Because of this, Houston and other Texas real estate markets...

Property hunting is the endless rabbit hole that real estate investors are perpetually thrust into. We’re always on the lookout for the best deals, the perfect properties, and the key features that will ultimately calculate into that sweet investment property for our portfolio.

Even though it’s necessary, looking for properties comes with a lot of frustrations. It’s exhausting to be faced with an endless sea of options, most of which aren’t the right fit.

When you find one that actually works out, having to go through a long process of negotiating and acquisition before you can actually get on the path to making money on the property is another headache, too!

Investing in real estate can be a fast-paced, heart-pounding experience, even for passive real estate investors. Depending on where you invest, certain real estate markets can get heated and competitive. You might find yourself up against a bustling market of homebuyers, a cutthroat group of international investors, or even just tight inventory.

Doubt can be a powerful, powerful feeling.

The seed can be small, but it can grow out of control in our minds. We can second-guess important decisions and stop ourselves from making the choices that are in our best interests.

Those are the choices that will spur us on to success in real estate investment!

When it comes to our finances and especially when it comes to investments, we tend to get in this mindset of waiting for the right time.

We want the moment to be right. We want the market to be primed for the best deals, the best rates, the best chances for our success. While there’s nothing wrong with that per se, we have one big question that begs asking:

Property hunting can give any real estate investor a headache. It’s especially challenging when you’re looking for a property that is out-of-area.

If you’re outside of your local market, the first tool most of us go to nowadays is the Internet: we grab our laptops or smartphones and head online to scour property listings on the platforms we’ve come to know and trust.