A Day in the Life of a Real Estate Investor
Since pursuing real estate investing requires self motivation, persistence and drive, I'm curious as to what your typical day is like. Are you on your computer most of the time or do you find yourself out and about networking, checking properties and meeting with your team? I'm new at this and I feel I need to plan my day with structure and set weekly goals. Do you plan each hour of the day? If you work a full time job, how do you manage your time?
The only answer is what is your next critical step to moving forward? Do that till you have completed it, then do the next step.
Don’t have a deal, go find one. Keep doing this till otherwise. Need funding, go find it. Keep doing this till otherwise. Need service providers (“your team”) go find them. Keep doing that... Keep repeating.
If your like me, you will be sitting around at midnight pecking away at finding or working a deal, maybe emailing someone in your network. I normally work in the morning and evenings, spend my days living life.
I am a newbie in your shoes but I am taking action. I am trying to find deals. What I do is set a goal of cold calling 10 people a day. That isnt many but I stay consistent with it. I also stay connected to the BP community to just keep my head in the game by posting a few times everyday. It keeps me persistent on getting my goal. I am now creating a website. It depends on your personality. I work in bursts but know from experience I will quit a pursuit quickly if I dont have a task I force myself to do everyday. I do these everyday tasks and then let the bursts of ambition get alot of work done.
Alot of this is psychological so my goal is to conquer my mind until I figure out what works. Just do what you think you should do until you discover you need to readjust, ive been doing that alot in the past 3 months.
Originally posted by @Lisa V.:Since pursuing real estate investing requires self motivation, persistence and drive, I'm curious as to what your typical day is like. Are you on your computer most of the time or do you find yourself out and about networking, checking properties and meeting with your team? I'm new at this and I feel I need to plan my day with structure and set weekly goals. Do you plan each hour of the day? If you work a full time job, how do you manage your time?
I have a blog post coming out soon just on this topic. It all starts with goal definition and then peeling back the layers until you derive consumable chunks. I then create a simple spreadsheet to help keep me accountable of my daily tasks or those consumable chunks. I do have a FTJ and with 2 kids under 3, the alarm goes off at 430 to knock out my REI tasks before my day "starts".
My typical day consists of a lot of meetings, in front of the computer, for my W2 job. In between, there is occasionally time to look at deals. And of course after dinner I'll hunt down the good ones and really dig into the numbers. I also regularly attend REI meetings in the evening, and co-host one as well.
On weekends, I'll actually get out and look at the deals with good numbers. Although sometimes I'll take a PTO day and do this during the week too, if I feel like I need to move quickly.
Having a job that allows me to work remotely is also useful after picking up a new deal. I usually do my own remodels, so I can go and stay at the property, work during the day, and remodel in the evenings. Since these are mainly STRs in the mountains, it's not as if I can just run over to them after work.
However, I do try to plan this type of thing in the 'off season', so it's not really part of a typical day. I spend about a week or so doing this every few months.
Lisa V. Hey Lisa, hope you had a nice Holiday. Being a marketer you have a huge head start. I’ve found that I’m not in the real estate business but the marketing business and real estate is the product. I started flipping houses while working a full time job. I was always behind the computer so I was doing most of the computer work while my partner was running around doing the boots on the ground work. Once we had about 5 projects going on at once I left the 9-5 grind. With that said I am now on the phone a lot and analyzing deals that come in. So whether it’s analyzing a deal behind the computer or on my phone I’m on one of those two quite a bit throughout the day. When I’m not doing that my partner and I are looking at the select few properties meeting with agents and setting up marketing. We had no goals or anything like that when we started and had no processes, no website, barely even business cards. There was definitely minimal structure. Did that hurt us or benefit us, I’d say the latter. Going with the flow and not having the set schedule is key for us. We mainly just had things that needed to get done and started knocking away at them. We have things we need to do and get them done. Be friendly, network, know how to analyze a deal and pull the trigger and you should be good.Any other questions ask away? Have an awesome New Years!
A typical day: Wake up, do some landlord duties as needed (lately it's salting ice or shoveling snow before work), listen to BP podcasts/check BP on the commute, work 9-5, commute home, take care of more landlord duties (keep a list), gym, sleep, repeat.
Variable things: Phone calls to contractors or repairmen, phone calls with tenants, running numbers (new potential deals, new ideas, finances/accounting), reaching out/networking, running reports (credit checks, background checks), talking to lenders, replying to BP posts, attending REI meetings, email property managers, and many more
All of these things are done early morning, during lunch, or after work ^
Thanks for your replies. @Levi T., @Cody Evans, @Jay Helms, @Garry C., @Bobby Nilsen, @Steve DellaPelle
I like the fact that every day is different and as long as I can be out and about and not tied down to my computer 24/7 I'm happy! Right now I am building my local network, learning the calculations and trying to get a feel for the Denver market. I don't think it's possible to have a rigid schedule since new information or possibilities happen quickly.
I’m happy to help you navigate Denver, Lisa. I’ve got 20 doors in the area, and frankly it’s getting to be a pretty tricky market as prices and interest rates continue to climb. Returns are pretty thin, and inventory is really low, but you can still find deals if you know what to look for. Send me a private message if you’d like to have coffee and chat.
I have started painting again. When I had another house burn (in a college town, they are all new to smoking) in 2014 I had to quit painting portraits and go back to renovating. Back when I started out some 40 years ago I liked doing the repairs myself and learned as I went. I am now nearing the point where everything is paid for a then you just have to worry about how much tax I'll be paying. I still keep up with doing repairs once in a while like last week when the girls had gone home for holiday and turned off the heat, did I say this is Kansas. The valves wouldn't move. I'll go up tomorrow and replace cartridges and hope no brass housings are cracked.