Real estate investing can be an incredibly challenging industry to break into in a successful way. If you want to make it in the real estate industry, especially when it comes to being a successful investor, you need to put a lot of value in hard work. That means committing the time and effort into learning as much as possible about investing and making the connections that will help you.
Successful real estate investing is not simply about purchasing the first property you can afford and then selling it for a huge profit. Sometimes, a property is not a good buy. Other factors might depreciate the property’s value while you own it. Purchasing a property requires plenty of knowledge and research on your end. There is a fine line between being too cautious when it comes to purchasing real estate investments and being too rash with your money. While any purchase is a risk to some degree, you need to make sure that risk is calculated when you’re first starting out in real estate investing.
If you work hard and put plenty of effort into you real estate investments, you will quickly find a lot of value in that work.
Avoid rash decisions
Working hard when getting into real estate investing means that you know how to take a calculated risk and understand the type of property that would best fit your means. Instead of investing in a property that will not sell well or is not in a great market, you know how to find properties that fit your niche in real estate and can gain a profit. You’re patient enough to wait for the right opportunity instead of rushing into an investment you aren’t ready to make.
Know the research
A lot of people go into real estate investing believing that it’s an easy way to make quick money. This idea is not accurate; you need to do your research to know what the market is like, what investments have the best potential, and what an ideal piece of property looks like. Many people may purchase property believing that they’re getting a great deal, only to find out the property is much more expensive to improve than they initially thought.
When analyzing a property make sure to come up with your own itemized renovation budgets, pro-forma projections, comp analysis including price/sf metrics, and CAP rate and FCF rankings vs the market just to name a few.
By working hard and doing your research, you’re more adept at identifying whether or not something is a good investment.
Create a network
A huge part of working in real estate is cultivating many connections. Whether you’re working with contractors, potential buyers, or possible investors, you need to be able to skillfully grow your network and find people that you can work with for mutual benefit.
Identify your “edge”
Specifically identify and quantify why the property is mispriced. What do you know that the market doesn’t? How will you capitalize on this property that the market isn’t pricing efficiently? If the answer is that the property is efficiently priced already, move on to the next opportunity.