Goal Setting For The Real Estate Investor Newbie

Have you been thinking about starting a real estate investing business? The good news is that it is a very lucrative business to be in and isn’t really that hard to start in the business as long as you take the time to learn as much as you can, write a solid business plan, and set some goals for your business.

Real estate investing is similar to any other business in that you need to have a good solid business plan and set some realistic short-term and long-term goals for your business to have a fair chance at success. Just as you have a budget for how you will spend your money each month, you should also have a plan for what you will be doing with your time and how you will measure your successes and failures. This plan you lay out for measuring your success and mapping out your time is known as your goals.

Short-Term & Long-Term Goals

Having clearly defined short-term and long-term goals is important for both you as an individual, as well as for your real estate investment business. Your short-term goals should define those things you will work to accomplish in the next week, month, and year. For your real estate investment business, your long-term goals should include things you want to see in your business in say one, five, ten, and fifteen years from now.

One of the keys to setting good goals for your business is to think about what you want and then think about all the steps necessary to get there. Suppose you plan on buying and holding properties for rentals. You may have a lofty goal of owning 100 properties by the time you retire in 20 years. This is a good long-term goal. However, before you can reach this long-term goal you first have to purchase property numbers 1-99. So, your goals may look something like this:

Short Term Goals:
• Month 1 – purchase 1 propertyn • Month 9 – purchase 10th property

Long-Term Goals:
• Year 1 – Own 15 propertiesn • Year 3 – Own 25 propertiesn • Year 5 – Own 35 properties

As you can see, the idea is to look at where you want to be and then plan your route to get there. From the above you can further break down your steps into goals by day, week, month, etc… You might find it easier to start at the ending and then work your way back step-by-step to the things you have to do first to get there.

Goal setting is similar to solving a puzzle. If I hand you a jigsaw puzzle with 100 pieces and say, “Put this together.” You might feel the frustration that comes from not knowing where to start. However, if I say, “Put this puzzle together starting with just the outside edge” then you will start to sort the pieces for the edge pieces and you won’t have the hurdle of where you should start to get over. It’s those hurdles in life, and in business, that keep people from getting from point “A” to point “Z”. Often they are at point “A” and they know they want to be at point “Z” but just can’t quiet see how to get there. However, with a map of goals to get to “B”, “C”, “D”, etc… the hurdle is gone and before they know it they have arrived at “Z”.

To be a successful real estate investor you must learn to set goals for your business. While it isn’t hard to do, it is something that you must master to find success. nnn