How are you using Real Estate to move Toward your Goals? Participation Thread!

[bizaro86]

After reading and considering Wade's "4 Cats" thread, I noticed most of the threads I believe he was referring to dealt with the stock market/economy/oil price, etc. Everything except real estate. The real estate threads tend to be much more diverse in terms of responses, which you would expect.



Therefore, I've decided to start one with a question, and challenge those who may be lurking/not posting much to jump right in. I'll post my thoughts, and then get out of the way



How have you used real estate recently (past month, year, whatever) to get you closer to your ultimate goals/belize? What is one thing you're planning on changing in your real estate business over the next year to move closer to those goals?



Regards,



Michael

 

[bizaro86]

Personally, I bought a property this spring that moves me towards my goals. It's in a great neighbourhood (better than every other property I own). It was easy to rent for a great price, and should be easy to keep rented. I'm looking at it as a chance to get part of my portfolio closer to autopilot. My goals will eventually require me to relinquish my properties to a management company, and this is one that I believe could be managed well by someone else. As a happy side note, it also has the best cashflow in my portfolio.



My goal for the next year is to buy one more "upgrade" property. If I can do that every year, I'll be very happy.



Regards,



Michael



PS. Please let 'er rip, we'd all be interested to hear about your accomplishments/goals, no matter how big or small they are.

 

[GaryMcGowan]

Over the past three years we have bought multi's, single family homes, rent to own properties and now a couple Buy/Fix and hold properties. The big news for this year is in a couple of days I will have worked my last day in the corporate world! Real Estate has allowed me to be in a position to move from full time employment to becoming an full/part time Investor.



Going forward,

We will continue to purchase under valued properties for cash and add value to them with renovations. Our exit plans are to sell right away, keep and refi or bring on one of our Joint Venture partners to the investment. This strategy has been working well for us. We have a great system in place and the plan is to continue on the pace that we are on now and the properties that we can not work on we will pass onto other investors.



I'm looking forward to spending my extra time with my family and helping others to invest into real estate.

 

[Thomas Beyer]

[quote user=bizaro86] What is one thing you're planning on changing in your real estate business over the next year to move closer to those goals?


I have decided to use less leverage, i.e. more cash down to increase cash-flow and reduce risk. I used to be fairly highly levered and made a ton of money in an up up up market as that was the prudent strategy then. Now, in a lower demand world, with more conservative consumers, investors and bankers less equity upside will be the norm, thus far more focus on cash-flow and mortgage paydown as opposed to equity upside.

 

[2ndstory]

I need to finish a renovate / sell project that is taking up too much time in my life. In the next year I would like to buy at least one or two more properties to rent and hold. I plan to use the money I make from selling this project to pay down debt as well as improve some of the buildings in my portfolio. After the improvements are done I will get them appraised and refinance to purchase a couple more cash flowing properties to hold.



Nik

 

[housingrental]

I've used real estate to get closer to my goal by improving the quality of life of the residences in my rental communities. The one change I'm planning over the next year to move closer to my goals is to hire more people to be able to serve more people while delivering a higher level of service. My goal is to make every person I encounter and deal with day a bit better than it would have been.



Thank you Michael for posting your questions and helping to keep me focused on my goal today.

 

[RedlineBrett]

Since we want more controversy around here I'm going to call BS on Adam's plan of being nice to everyone to make more money.



Do your target tenants truly expect greater service? Do you lose tenants because they have a mean landlord? Or do your owners/clients expect you to be nicer to them and do you get more service complaints about this than keeping their costs down?



Adding staff is an investment in your business. You do it to either cut costs or add revenue. Which one are you accomplishing when you make "the days of the people you deal with better" ?

 

[housingrental]

Since we want more controversy around here I'm going to call BS on Adam's plan of being nice to everyone to make more money. Fair enough I might have brought this on myself



Do your target tenants truly expect greater service? No most are very impressed with the speed of response and thoroughness of service provided and regularly compliment me on this



Do you lose
tenants because they have a mean landlord? No but have been able to gain tenants from this and maintain a few hundred past tenants on potential renter list (by request of tenant after tenancy) for info on other places to rent when they decide to switch places (often from changing need of how many bedrooms or location of unit)





Or do your owners/clients
expect you to be nicer to them and do you get more service complaints
about this than keeping their costs down?

No most owners if they check in are surprised to hear how happy the tenants are with the place and the management. I've received two significant bonus cheques this year from two different owners with no requirement from them as thank you's for my work and how well thinks have gone.





Adding staff is an investment in your business. You do it to either cut
costs or add revenue. Which one are you accomplishing when you make
"the days of the people you deal with better" ?

My business is growing. However only part of extra staffing is for servicing more properties. Part of it will be to free up more of my time to dedicate to charity - hopefully culminating in the building, or raising a significant portion of the funding towards low income suited housing and assisted living premises to help provide people transition from homelessness.











[quote user=RedlineBrett]Since we want more controversy around here I'm going to call BS on Adam's plan of being nice to everyone to make more money.



Do your target tenants truly expect greater service? Do you lose tenants because they have a mean landlord? Or do your owners/clients expect you to be nicer to them and do you get more service complaints about this than keeping their costs down?



Adding staff is an investment in your business. You do it to either cut costs or add revenue. Which one are you accomplishing when you make "the days of the people you deal with better" ?

 

[rforgiel]

Adam,



This is a nice message and goal.

I understand what you are going for. It is about going from the finite to the infinite. What they don't teach you in business school is being sensitive to your clients. Not everything in business is measurable and objective.



Here is a video you may be interested in:

http://devdutt.com/talk-at-tie-why-for-whom/



It is a little long winded but worth the watching.

 

[housingrental]

Thanks

At some point it hits you that you can either keep doing what you're doing or you can choose to change the world for the better over time...

I'll watch through it later today

 

[Rickson9]

Speaking for myself, I have no financial goals at the moment. I use RE and stock investing to feed my ego and mental addiction to allocating capital. I continue to keep doing what I'm doing.

 

[MooseHead]

Great thread and replies. Reading everyone elses goals and achievements certainly help keep me motivated to attain mine!



In july, I closed on my first rental property (duplex). It isn't in the worse location but not in the best either. It was a fixer upper with the upper unit requiring extensive renos. I managed to get the upper unit renovated and rented in a timely fashion. I was able to clean up the outside of the building my adding a nice retaining wall in the front and some shrubs.



Yesterday I closed on a single family home that will be my first primary residence. It is also quite the fixer upper but it is in a great location and I got it for well under market value! I've banked up quite a bit of vacation leave at work and tomorrow will be my last shift for a month (woo!). I will have a month off to get a large chunk of the renos done and hopefully get in a round or two of golf before the snow falls.



I look forward to completing the renos and saving up for my next rental property which I hope to acquire next year!



Cheers,



MH

 

[TangoWhiskey]

[quote user=bizaro86] I've decided to start one with a question, and challenge those who may be lurking/not posting much to jump right in. I'll post my thoughts, and then get out of the way



How have you used real estate recently (past month, year, whatever) to get you closer to your ultimate goals/belize? What is one thing you're planning on changing in your real estate business over the next year to move closer to those goals?




This one's easy. Since my strongest value is freedom, by picking and training an on-site manager from among the tenants of my largest apt bldg and compensating them well this has been invaluable in freeing me up to work on finding more assets, growing the portfolio, and planning how to begin raising capital. Since I'm sitting on enough capital to buy a 30+ unit building, working my day job plus managing my own assets (30 units at this point) prevented me from taking the next steps to create a deal pipeline for 20-40 unit apt buildings in my target areas. If you can make say 300 K work at only 15 % per year in cashflow and amortization, or 45K per year in a tax efficient manner, I was stepping over dollars to pick up nickels as that money earned a few hundred bucks in a bank account and I worked for employment income, which is not tax efficient. You make the money on the buy, and reaching out to owners rather than waiting for commercial realtors to generate competition may save me 50K or even 100K per million of value. Its a no-brainer.



The big change is that I have now quit for good to focus on this as a career. I just have to tell them!



Tris

 

[2ndstory]

[quote user=Rickson9]Speaking for myself, I have no financial goals at the moment. I use RE and stock investing to feed my ego and mental addiction to allocating capital. I continue to keep doing what I'm doing.

Nik