{"id":95392,"date":"2018-01-05T11:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T18:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=95392"},"modified":"2021-03-16T13:46:48","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:46:48","slug":"financial-or-real-estate-investing-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/financial-or-real-estate-investing-goals","title":{"rendered":"7 Questions to Help Make Your Financial or Real Estate Investing Goals Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Real estate investing can take many forms. For some investors, it\u2019s a side project\u2014an investment they participate in while pursuing a career in a different industry.<\/p>\n<p>For others, real estate investing is a business venture\u2014an opportunity to create enough income to leave a day job and invest in real estate full time.<\/p>\n<p>It seems like many BiggerPockets members are in the first camp but want to get to the second one as soon as possible. The key to making that (or anything else in your life) happen is setting clear goals.<\/p>\n<p>When I first got started, my goal was to replace my active income by investing in real estate. At the time, I was a painting contractor. Personally, I just couldn\u2019t see myself working in construction for the rest of my life. Plus, what if I got hurt? What if I was out of work for two months? Or worse, what if I could never work again?<\/p>\n<p>It was around that same time that I began writing down my goals. I didn\u2019t have a vision board, <em>per se<\/em>, but I would still write down development plans and property blueprints. I&#8217;d also post actual pictures of potential possessions where I would see them every day.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a href=\"\/renewsblog\/2015\/10\/10\/big-goals-actionable-steps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stop Dreaming and Start Doing: How to Turn Big Real Estate Goals into Actionable Steps<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>That said, it wasn\u2019t until recently that I realized the power of having a vision for my <em>life<\/em>, or at least for the next few years. At my note company, one of our business coaches encouraged senior leadership to complete five- and 10-year vision plans for our lives inside and outside the business.<\/p>\n<p>It may seem like a daunting task to plan that far ahead\u2014after all, many of us don\u2019t know what we\u2019re doing next weekend, let alone five to 10 years from now. Still, there\u2019s something very liberating about this exercise. And there are no \u201cbad\u201d visions. You can just take a pen to paper and write down whatever you want.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-95463\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/visionboardfull.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"702\" height=\"468\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/visionboardfull.jpg 702w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/visionboardfull-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 702px) 100vw, 702px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Also, remember that your goals and your vision will change as your priorities shift over time. You can always make revisions. For example, many investors gradually transition from being actively involved in their real estate portfolios in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and eventually start to hand off active management\u2014or even gradually liquidate and move their capital to more passive vehicles.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m definitely a guy who is moving from being more active to being more passive in my investing. My personal vision used to be that I would own and manage 100 houses. However, with all the maintenance and management challenges I&#8217;ve experienced as a property manager\u2014especially compared with the ease of lending out private money and managing performing (paying) notes\u2014my vision has changed to owning 100 notes instead.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a href=\"\/renewsblog\/2015\/09\/07\/steps-reevaluate-priorities\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Too Busy to Start Investing? These 3 Steps Will Help You\u00a0Reevaluate Your Priorities<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<h2>7 Questions to Help You Create Your Vision<\/h2>\n<p>What about you? What are your goals? If you\u2019re not sure where to start, here are a few questions to ask yourself to get the ball rolling.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>If you had no financial restraints, what would you do?<\/li>\n<li>Years from now, what do you want to be proud of?<\/li>\n<li>Do you want to invest in real estate as a side project or as a business?<\/li>\n<li>What is your \u201cwhy\u201d for investing in real estate?<\/li>\n<li>What kind of life do you want to design for yourself?<\/li>\n<li>When do you want to retire? What do you want your retirement to look like?<\/li>\n<li>If you want to replace your income, how will you do that?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>Goal Setting Based on Your Vision<\/h2>\n<p>The further out you can envision, the better your plan will be.<\/p>\n<p>After creating my personal vision, I found it much easier to work backwards and figure out how I was going to get there. My shorter-term goals began to make more sense, and everything had a clear direction.<\/p>\n<p>At my business, we were able to incorporate the the senior leadership team&#8217;s vision plans into that of the company.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to personal goals, don\u2019t just focus on finances or career. I think it\u2019s important to think about the whole picture, including relationships, health, philanthropy, and personal development. And of course, let\u2019s not forget recreation and free time.<\/p>\n<p>Today, as I\u2019m getting older, most of my personal goals focus more on sharing my experiences, serving and educating investors, and just generally helping others by giving back, than they do on monetary and materialistic types of goals.<\/p>\n<p>My advice is to start with your vision. If you do, I bet your shorter-term goals will come to you.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/webinars?utm_source=renewsblog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-91217\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/blog_ads-01.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"85\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/blog_ads-01.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/blog_ads-01-300x36.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>So, what are your goals for this year (or the next five or 10)?<\/em> Better yet, what is your vision-based plan for real estate investing? Tell me in the comments below!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Never underestimate the power of goal setting when it comes to financial success. Ask yourself these prompts to get started living your dreams!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":807,"featured_media":94496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-business-management"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/807"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}