If you ask someone “what makes a real estate investor successful?” you’ll likely get a lot of different answers.
The truth is, a lot of different traits make the recipe for success. Honesty is important. Integrity—that’s a good one. Tenacity, nice. There’s old-fashioned intelligence. A natural knack with money.
But what common thread weaves through every successful real estate investor?
Surely there’s one thing that brings it all home. One thing that ties it all together...
It’s hard not to feel the holiday spirit this time of year. No matter what holiday you celebrate, there’s something undeniably different about this season. It can be stressful, sure, but it’s hard not to love warm feelings and those little extra acts of kindness. We have the nostalgia of Christmas music on the radio, festive decorations and the joy in buying presents for loved ones.
For real estate investors, the holidays are a great time to slow down and reflect on the year. What are you thankful for? Who are you are thankful for? Remember to show gratitude to those who have made your 2015 a good year.
Plenty of investors have come to realize that managing property management responsibilities is not for them. Being a real estate investor and being a property manager are two entirely different jobs. Not everyone is cut out to deal with day-to-day tenant issues. Many investors are looking for a means of passive income and know that they don’t want to add to their workload.
There are real estate investors, however, who’ve convinced themselves that they have to do it all. They have to be the owner and the manager simultaneously. There are reasons behind this line of thinking, and we can understand where some investors are coming from.
Sometimes real estate investors like to stick to the numbers. We look at positive cash flow and make calculations and see where we can boost our bottom line. Sticking too close to the technical aspects of the business has its perils, though. It can lead us to look at real estate investing as a paper endeavor where some black typing on a white sheet is all we have to worry about. There is much more to this than simply looking at the numbers on a piece of paper.
Investing in real estate is a business of relationships, not numbers. As a company, we absolutely believe in that message and have built each of our businesses on the backs of great people who are passionate about what they do. Many of our team members are also real estate investors themselves, so strong relationships are something we understand very clearly!
Real estate investors like it when people rent. Obvious, right? After all, investing in real estate is a business and we have to treat it like a business. In a business, the goal is to make money. That, however, is an oversimplified version of the role of the real estate investors. We’re a business that deals with people — people whose lives matter and play important roles in the health of our economy and the real estate market.
This is a philosophy that plays into our role as a property manager. So whether you are a landlord or you use property management companies to provide service to you, the success of a renter, your tenant, is vital to your success as a real estate investor. Here at Premier Property Management, we hold four different sets of persons as vitally important to our company. First, our team. Second our clients. Third our vendors. Fourth our tenants. These four groups are equally important and the tenant is the one who is so often overlooked.
We haven’t met a person yet who likes paying a mortgage. Both homeowners and investors who don’t pay for properties via all-cash offers have to deal with mortgages. No one likes them. In the years since the market crash, mortgage rates bottomed out to an all-time low, making it an ideal time for investors to snatch up properties and bring some life back into the real estate market. They did, giving the market the boost it needed to get back on its feet.
Looking forward to 2015, however, real estate experts expect rates to rise to 5% next year and 6% in the next two years, putting rates at the highest point they’ve been since the market crash. While that’s hardly the highest they could be, the real estate market is still in the middle of recovery, which could mean another slowdown if lenders don’t play it smart.
If you’re new to real estate investment, you’ll find out pretty quickly that the learning curve can be steep. One of the most important parts of real estate investment is to educate yourself on the legal aspects of the business. The last thing you want to happen is to find out you’ve made a legal mistake...after you’ve already made one.
It’s no secret that the real estate market and the job market are closely connected to one another.
For instance, we know that the real estate market has been struggling due to a lack of first-time homebuyers — because the job market is making it difficult for them to have the resources necessary to purchase a home. Because of this reason, the housing market has remained more sluggish than it should in the midst of economic recovery.
Only three things happen naturally when investing in real estate. Confusion, under-performance and apathy. The rest requires leadership! If part of your real estate investing goals includes moving away from Turnkey investing for part of your portfolio and into an active role, you are going to have to provide leadership to the team you choose! I hope you enjoy this article.
So you’ve decided to become a real estate investor. Congratulations! If we had confetti, we’d certainly celebrate your decision. Joining the business of real estate investment is an exciting prospect that holds endless opportunities to make passive income for any number of reasons, from retirement to Aruba.
As exciting as it can be to join the community of real estate investors, it’s daunting, too. There’s a lot to learn and take in when you’re starting out — but you don’t have to do it alone.
