How do you find enough time to study real estate deals?

Most of the time, my job is securing bulk deals and repackaging them as individual rental properties. Typically, I might secure 10-15 condos in a community and then I´ll market them individually to a database of investors we´ve built up over the years.

Generally speaking, when a person gets in touch with me, it is because they are interested in real estate investment. They have money to spend and they are willing to push the button when the right deal comes along.

However, only a minority of people who would like to buy an investment property actually end up doing it. The main reason is time.

Just this weekend, I was struggling to find enough time to mow the lawn, paint the fence and fix my kids bike! It can be really difficult to find the time to do something outside your normal routines, and researching a $100,000 deal requires a lot of work.

Mike from Toronto is one of my best clients. He has purchased 7 properties from me in the last 5 years and he knew exactly what he was getting into each time. If he has bought 7 properties it is safe to assume he has researched and turned down a lot more than that.

Want to know where Mike finds the time to research all these properties?

He certainly isn´t retired or working at this full time. He works long hours as a doctor and he has two young kids.

The difference between Mike and most regular people is not that he spends all his spare time researching deals and has no social life. I can tell you for a fact that he has a great social life. He takes long holidays, he golfs regularly with friends and he eats at the best restaurants in town every month.

What sets Mike apart from the crowd is his discipline during the periods when he has accumulated enough cash to purchase an additional property. If he wants to add to his portfolio you will not catch him with his feet up watching TV every evening after work. He won´t be googling investment options with a glass of wine on a Friday night only to forget all about it the following day.

When Mike is “in the zone” or in the middle of a potential purchase, he goes into his home office early in the mornings before work starts and he goes back in there again in the evenings after the kids are asleep. On weekends, he skips a couple of games of golf and does his real estate homework instead.

Outside of these intense research periods, Mike reads a lot of real estate books and uses the tips and lessons within them to refine his own checklists and strategies. Like all successful investors, he treats this as a continuous learning process.

Conclusion
Mike takes real estate seriously and understands that investing takes time and research. Some people want to buy quickly once they have reached a certain goal, like saving $100,000. The truth is that having money to invest is just the first step. Capital is simply the vehicle you use to achieve the goals you´ve set.

If you like the idea of building a property portfolio in the coming years, you need to be prepared to change your routines to make it happen. You´ll need to emulate the common traits that successful investors share such as discipline and continuous learning.

We do business with a very wide range of buyers, and I can confirm without the slightest doubt that people like Mike are always the most hard working and focused on success. He earns a very comfortable salary as a doctor but it is his real estate deals that are making him rich.

If you would like to get started on this road, my advice is to begin by talking to the guys that are a few years ahead of you and get into the habit reading the right kinds of books and blogs.