Undoubtedly, Real Estate Investing can be a very lucrative endeavor. However, to achieve success, you need to have a clear plan and set goals. Once your goals are set, ongoing refinement and performance assessments are required to ensure your roadmap remains relevant.
Property Investment offers a range of opportunities, from low-cost purely passive investing vehicles such as real estate investment trusts (REITs), to higher cost, and often higher return, active investing through ownership of multifamily and single-family rentals.
MY SMART COUSIN helps clients, with a special focus on Black and Brown folks and women, identify, evaluate and close on real estate investment opportunities. We educate clients on the benefits, risks, and strategies of property investment, and in particular, how to Buy a house for the price of a car. As a seasoned Real Estate Investment Coach, we help you move from idea to action, and turn your dream of being a property investor and/or homeowner into a reality.
Are you thinking about becoming a real estate investor? Or are you already one, but looking to scale your portfolio, tap into additional financing or improve your skills? Regardless of your experience or current portfolio, it’s important to set goals at every step of your investment journey. That’s why we’ve put together a list of 5 goals that should frame your real estate investment business plan. Keep reading to learn more!
WHAT ARE THE 5 SMART GOALS FOR PROPERTY INVESTMENT?
Every successful person envisions a path to success, even if the road ultimately taken is quite different than the original plan. SMART goals can provide you with a compass of sorts to hone in on your objectives and set you up for success. SMART goals are often used in the corporate setting to create departmental and career goals. But they also work well to define your real estate strategy.
SMART stands for –
· Specific
· Measurable
· Attainable
· Relevant
· Time-bound
If you are an investor looking to get the most out of your real estate investments, then using SMART goals can help. This technique helps narrow down what is important and makes sure that nothing is left behind.
SPECIFIC REAL ESTATE GOALS
The Real Estate Investing world is a vast and diverse one, with many different styles of investing (fix and flip, wholesale, turnkey, etc.) and real estate types (single-family, multi-family, commercial, vacant lots, and so on). Because of this broad range, it can be easy to get lost in the weeds. Setting clear objectives helps you stay on track, as you progress from goal-setting to goal-assessment to goal-fulfillment.
If you’re a visual learner, printing your SMART goals and hanging them in a place you’ll see often can also help remind you where you’re going. Important to creating SMART goals is ensuring that your objectives are stated clearly so that you know what you meant by them months later when reviewing them.
MEASURABLE REAL ESTATE GOALS
Why are measurable goals better? Simply put, because measurable goals give you an objective yardstick to determine if you’re on track or off-track, and to measure how much progress you’re making. Additionally, measurable goals help rein you in so that you don’t set goals that are entirely out of reach. For new investors especially, it can be helpful to set numerical targets— for instance, ‘visit 5 potential multifamily investment properties by September’ rather than qualitative hard-to-judge targets like ‘go see more properties’. Sharing your goals with a family member or business partner can also help keep you accountable.
ATTAINABLE REAL ESTATE GOALS
Create goals that strike the right balance of challenging enough to push you, but also practical so they feel attainable. Creating objectives that are unrealistic or overly ambitious can be de-motivating and ultimately cause you to give up, or spin your wheels pursuing goals that are better served for year two or even in your business.
RELEVANT REAL ESTATE GOALS
Relevant real estate goals get to whether your objective— buying a multifamily property or your first home— really aligns with your life plans at this point in time. For instance, if property investing, while a worthy pursuit, is one of ten other critical things that you’re chasing in life, then it might make sense to take a hard look at your priorities and determine what should be done first, versus going all-in on real estate no matter what.
TIME-BOUND GOALS
Real estate investing is not just about rent revenues, it’s also an excellent opportunity to build your generational wealth. The surest way to turn your words into action on this front is to set milestones, breaking each goal into a set of tasks, with a timeline for when each task will be done. Setting a date for the achievement of each goal can give you a specific target to shoot for.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Congratulations! You’ve set your SMART real estate goals. Now what? Each goal will require a different plan of action to achieve success, so it’s important to tailor your strategy accordingly. Thanks for reading and happy investing.
RECOMMENDED READ: HOW LONG IS AN APPRAISAL GOOD FOR? 5 FACTORS TO CONSIDER
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