Good Morning everyone, I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. This week I wanted to talk about the six key things that you need to be thinking about when becoming a Professional Property Investor or maybe your in property already and you hit a bit of a stumbling block and you now want to build the portfolio and taking it to another level by increasing cash flow and doing more deals. Therefore these are the 6 things you need to be thinking about it in order to do so:

 

1. What strategy are you going to focus on as your primary strategy?

We have spoken about this previously on a Sunday but seriously there are so many different strategies and wonderful ways of making multiple streams of income in property that you can focus on such as land development, commercial conversions, rent2rent, flipping, serviced accommodation, multi lets, HMOs and lease options. All of these strategies are amazing and they can all make you a lot of money one deal at a time but you cannot as mentioned previously do them all at once. As each one requires so much time and commitment you need to focus on one and make that your primary strategy. Remember 80% of your time should be spent on your primary strategy and 20% of your time should be spent on your secondary strategy.

 

2.  You need to think how many hours realistically can you put into your property business?

A number of people say when they first start and they have another job or another business they are able to still do another 30 hours per week focussing on their property business but realistically that is not sustainable. However if you spend seven hours per week which equates to one hour p     er day and do so consistently you can maintain such habit and create a good profitable and sustainable business. However that one hour a day has to be very productive and you have to be focussed on your absolute key result areas you need to focus on which is to find deals, find money and grow your business and get that first or next property deal executed.

 

3. Getting the right education and mentorship

People who tend to start in property they think I can educate myself as a freebie through reading articles, watching youtube videos and listening to so called “property gurus”. People say we want to do it for free, however each of us invested in our education when we were young, we invest in our health with a monthly gym membership surely we should invest in our property education if we want to take it seriously and obtain financial freedom to ensure you are in the right direction! As humans when you venture into something no matter what your level of experience is you will always need guidance. Invest in your future but always choose wisely who you decide will mentor or provide education to you.

 

4. Location

Where are you going to be investing. This is very important in property as where you invest is known to be the gold mine area. This is an area which should be in the vicinity of 60 mins from where you live as you do not want to be travelling all over the country buying up property and have what is called a scatter gun approach. You want to choose an area where you can become really intimate and you can get to know the local agents, lettings agents, refurb costs, build costs and you get to know whether there are any new developments in the area. Therefore you really need to start focusing on your areas. However bare in mind not every strategy will work in every area. For instance in London the yields are very low and prices seem to be coming down. Therefore in different areas different strategies will work. In essence you need to do the right type of research and not rush into this. There are people who live in the south and invest in the north. It is of course not a bad thing but you would indeed have to focus and appreciate the pros and cons of such a strategy for instance you may potentially be up and down the M60 on a regular basis or alternatively what you have to do is that you makes sure you have a really strong team in the area where you are investing. You have to understand that the team could let you down and you have to make sure you micro manage the team to ensure they are taking care of your properties and that does indeed require time.  For larger deals you can travel further out but for multi let and Rent2Rent deals where a concentrated management approach is required it is important for it to be within a 60 min vicinity from where you reside.

 

5. Finding Deals

This is one of the most important points if you want to become profitable the main focus of your business should be to find the right deals and you do that by building relationships with all your local estate agents, lettings agents, going direct to vendor. You can search all of the portals but you have to view a high number of deals. Viewings are so important and then offers as you will not win every deal that you offer on. So you will have to have a really nice deal flow and preferably be in a position where agents are working for you and they are providing you deals even before they have put it out to the market place and you would obtain that with credibility, turning up and being trustworthy.

 

6. Finding Money

This is another really important point and you do this by raising Joint Venture finance and have used investor funds to build property portfolios. Therefore finding investors are really important by networking but again you will find investors if you find the right deals. You can find investors through your current friends circle or going to networking events but obtaining the first investor to JV will give you the confidence to obtain further investors as it will give you the belief that you can do it and it will provide you with the push as you are genuinely helping people obtain a higher return.

 

In essence if you implement these points whether you’re a newbie or an experienced investor this will allow you to take your current position to the next level in order to grow your portfolio and build your cash flow. Remember be smart with your time and tell anyone and everyone what you are doing you may never know who your next Joint Venture would be with.

 

Best of Luck!