Focus of the week; say no and take action

I realized this week that my thoughts are all over the place regarding what I need to do next to reach my real estate investing goals this year. I needed to refine my goals that I haven't visited since January in order to get more clear with my goals. I need to have smaller action steps with benchmarks every 90-days with target dates and track my daily and weekly habits to make sure I'm in alignment everyday. So I updated my goals with the end goal of "Grow a small business and systematize processes to retire from my w-2 by 2025!" Yep, that's 4 years away! Stay posted. 

Realign your goals and take Action

A thought came to me that I probably picked up from a guest on the BiggerPockets podcast that lingered in the back of my mind: I need to not only listen to the podcast, or read blogs, etc., but I need to take what resonates with me and put into action. I remembered this blog I started last week and decided to continue with this as a sort of thought purge and hopefully incite some discussion of what I found that was helpful to focus on this week. 

Listening to the most recent podcast about the core 4 and the divided 5'ed, (hey its pretty catchy), I realized I wasn't playing to my strengths and I was missing pieces of my team. I have found someone to JV partner on flips, but the leads coming in have been subpar with little to no profit left after wholesalers and hard money lender fees. There was almost a deal that we were about to pull the trigger and go for if not for the fact that my down payment is stalled because I just finished applying for a HELOC that hasn't funded yet. It was a great house with little rehab needed and an achievable ARV, but not a lot of profit after all fees. For the sake of getting momentum I would have moved forward on the deal, but the timing isn't right with the HELOC. I heard a saying from someone to "Just say no until you get a hell yes!" I think that will be the sentiment on this fizzled out deal. 

The partnership we're creating has the other business partner in charge of the rehab end with his experience in construction management and he needs good deals and money to fund them. My function in the partnership is to underwrite deals (fancy word for analyze) and use my equity from a HELOC as a down payment. I realized the major piece missing is finding quality off-market deals. Because I work my full-time w-2 job, I need to hire someone to drive for deals or do this on my days off. The part that 'feels light' to me in the process is actually underwriting deals to make sure after all expenses there will be profit before pursuing the leads that aren't really deals. 

Habit tracking and filling your calendar

I started working on my 'brand' and growing my presence on social media to hopefully get leads from both lenders and people selling their homes. Also, I'm creating a starting point  to build my credibility and pitch as to what I'm doing; building a real estate investing business. Now that its a new month, I printed off a new habit tracker and put new focus on my next steps. Although I need to fill my calendar with people to pitch my investment opportunity to, for now I have filled my calendar with this month's REIA meeting, a local meetup at the brewery, a women's investing meetup, and a mixer for business startups. Some of these I am probably going to miss because of work, but I want to see my calendar filling up now to keep the momentum. 

Although I haven't made a purchase yet this year, I am on track to hit some of my other goals such as starting a joint venture with a partner, complete a flip, learn a new finance method using HELOC and a hard money lender. My next steps are to continue tracking habits, growing a presence in social media by creating and sharing content, and start making videos to illustrate different areas of real estate investing. Have you visited your goals recently?