9 Tips for Working in Real Estate While Holding Down a 9-5

Effort and knowledge are required to properly and safely invest in real estate. However, this knowledge and daily consistent effort does not have to be yours 100%.

Most newer investors have traditional jobs, family life, and/or an education to pursue. However, even with all these prior commitments, many motivated investors are wishing to pile more responsibility and work onto their shoulders. If this describes you, keep up the great daily hustle and effort.

The bullets below are some items to consider when investing in real estate with a full-time job or multiple time-consuming obligations weekly.

9 Tips for Working More Productively in Real Estate

1. Don’t Be Afraid to Hire Virtual Assistants

Outsourcing is addictive! A virtual assistant can help organize your calls, make calls for you, oversee projects, handle online marketing, screen sellers or buyers, and much more. When a VA is properly trained, there are many duties/activities you will realize do not need to be performed personally by you anymore.

2. Look Into Adding a Property Manager

A well-trained and experience property manager can handle all your daily management duties. If your weekly schedule is busy, then hiring a property manager for roughly 10% the property’s gross income monthly can be very valuable. Figure this cost into your expenses while crafting your purchase offers when originally buying any home.

3. Embrace Technology

Google Voice, call forwarding, electronic signatures, mass texting, analyze-real-estate-repairs phone applications, personal branding websites, Google Earth and multi-layer phone message systems are only some of the ways technology is making our lives easier and easier as investors. Start being open to implementing new tools into your business. If it helps, then keep it; if it doesn’t help, then leave it.

4. Maximize Your Daily Commute

During your daily commute to and from work, start listening to motivational real estate investing podcasts, sales training CDs, real estate training courses you may have already purchased, etc. Your commute to work can be your time to educate yourself and motivate yourself with positive words of encouragement. The world is a busy and negative place, so do all you can to boost your self-esteem and ambition daily.

5. Consider Partners

Outsourcing to partners is a means of shifting much of the work and responsibility off of you directly. Work with partners with opposite skills and abilities as you. Be aware while working with partners; make certain to monitor the health and productivity of the partnership-arrangement regularly.

6. Aquire Trusted Handy People

Start working with contractors and handymen/women to make needed repairs to your investment homes. If you do not have the time to make repairs quickly, then outsource the work to a qualified professional. Your effort should be spent advertising and making deals, not necessarily swinging a hammer.

7. Use Smart Advertising

Almost every investor needs to market and advertise their business somehow. Nearly all advertising can be outsourced when a plan is in place and enough money is allocated. Some of these methods are traditional, such as newspaper ads, knocking on doors, making cold and warm calls, networking, etc. However, some advertising requires limited effort and repetitive energy to hang doorknob hangers, mail postcards, hang signs, send direct mail, lick envelopes, screen cold sellers, etc.

Companies: By working with online postcard and direct mail marketing companies, you can easily pay to outsource your direct mail needs.
Local college kids: Hiring local college students to hang your physical marketing material is a quick way to pay others to perform your very important, weekly busy work.

8. Add a Bookkeeper

If you love keeping track of your income and expenses, then skip this bullet. A bookkeeper can help maintain clarity in your business in a very tax compliant and easy to follow manner. Consider hiring a bookkeeper when keeping track of your business’s income/expenses becomes too much effort for you per month.

9. Make the Most of Free Time

Free time includes lunch breaks, your drive to work, your drive back home and any other time you are routinely free throughout the day. Use these times for business. Make focused calls daily, go to appointments or close with buyers/sellers.

Pro Tip: Set a minimum goal of connecting with 2-6 clients per day. These can be calls to new sellers, real estate agents, past sellers, park owners, brokers, park managers, buyers or anyone else important to your specific investing business niche.

In conclusion, the more available money you have, the more you can typically outsource. Aim to reinvest a majority of your investing profits back into attracting, negotiating and closing more deals to profit with. If you are newer to real estate investing, then realize that all the actions/duties of a real estate investor must to be completed in order to create value and profit. You can aim to complete these actions slowly, at a normal pace, or very quickly. For quickest results, aim to take massive action daily and help as many sellers locally as possible.

Did we miss any ways to outsource? What are some others you have implemented? Were they succesful?

Let’s talk in the comments section!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.