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Posted over 7 years ago

Key Takeaways From My First Two Weeks as a Full Time Investor

It's amazing how quickly time flies when you are having fun! It has been two weeks since I left my full time job to invest in real estate full time, and I have learned a lot. Here are some takeaways from my first two weeks as a full time investor. 

Funnel to the deals

For anyone who has ever worked in sales or marketing, you are familiar with the sales funnel. The idea is that a percentage of your leads will lead to offers, and a percentage of your offers will lead to deals. To illustrate with a real life example, my funnel so far looks something like this: 

My MLS search returned 28 listings on day 1. 

I looked through all of them and 17 fit my criteria at a surface level (my search is pretty refined after months of refining it). 

I analyzed them all and decided to go look at 9

I ended up seeing 8 because one never responded to the showing request (really?!) 

After seeing the 8 I placed 2 offers. 

The two offers are still being negotiated but I have a fair amount of confidence I will get at least 1. 

As I continue moving forward, I will refine these percentages and the funnel will act as a guide to my activities. 

Beware the "BS"

Starting a new business is exciting! Everything is new and you get to totally have your way with everything. Building a website and designing the best business card are fun, but can suck your time away from the important stuff: doing deals! Try your best to resist the temptation to spend too much time on "low payoff activities", or the activities that pay you the least. While a website can ultimately bring your leads, it may not be the best use of your time when you are getting started. 

Build your team

One of your highest payoff activities can be interviewing professionals that can add value to your team. In doing so you are basically leveraging other people's time and experience to accelerate your investing. Take some time to think about who you need most on your team. In my case it is lenders. The deals are there, the money is not yet. Spending time talking with private lenders, commercial lenders, and portfolio lenders is a great use of time right now for me. 

Tell people what you do!

Real Estate is a sexy business, just ask any real estate pro and they will tell you! People are drawn to the large sums of money changing hands and the perception of "set it and forget it" investing that we all know is not exactly true, but a great vision! Talking about yourself a little gets people excited and can only lead to good things. Just the other day, I was talking to a realtor that I was placing an offer with and he told me that he had a lead on a seller with 5 properties that will go to market soon and he will send me the details before they even hit the MLS. I was also talking to a friend of my parents and they were so excited for me and expressed interest in investing. I would have never known about those deals or the potential lender if I hadn't talked about it. 

And most importantly:

MAKE MOVES! 

Don't let analysis paralysis make you fail. Make something happen early and often and your chances of success will go up dramatically. Your best education will come from taking action. 

Stay tuned as I keep moving forward with my business and continue to learn more and more about running this business and making things happen! 



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