As an investor, you must hear about how best to invest and things you should be doing to earn better profits, but have you ever heard of things you shouldn’t be doing? There are many mistakes that you might be making to lose your profit as well as your ROI. To invest in real estate, you need to analyze a lot of things, and this includes your mistakes as well. Learning from your mistakes is one thing that you should be doing to succeed and earn better profits.
To be the best investor in town, you will need to analyze both the good and bad choices you have made in the past. This will help you gain immense knowledge about your business. All your investment opportunities come with an upside as well as a downside. As a businessman, you should know and understand both.
Comprehending your mistakes and the lacking, you will be able to reinvent your business strategy and invest in better properties. If you are new and haven’t made a move yet, you can always learn from inventors who came before you. Do not make the mistakes people have in the past, but rather take risks and make your own mistakes. That way you can learn better and explore more options. Here are some of the most common mistakes that real estate investors make and you shouldn’t.
Limiting yourself to your home market:
One of the biggest mistakes’ investors make is they do not explore any other markets than their local markets. Your local market is your comfort zone, it will give you steady profit, but it will never increase your experience and help you grow. You understand your local market; you ace it, but you are also being narrow-sighted by not exploring other options that are always open should you decide to take the risk. As a real estate investor, you should take time to research and explore other markets; this will help you broaden your horizon and be more profitable in time.
Ignoring An Exit Strategy:
Here’s the thing, buying a property at cheap rates isn’t enough if you haven’t got a plan to turn it into a gold mine. This is where your exit strategy will come in handy. You need to realize that buying distressed properties will not give you profit if you don’t have a solid plan to convert that property into something worth selling. You may be able to buy a property cheap, but if you haven’t got a plan to transform it, you will be stuck with an empty mine forever.
Too Many Financial Risks:
Every real estate investor should know how to manage financial risk. Yes, there are many options and resources available in the market to get you financial backing to invest in properties; however, you should always be calculated and smart about which option to go for. For example, there are umpteenth types of loans with both high and low-interest rates. You can also get personal recourse loans as well as non-recourse loans. Each option comes with a risk, and too many risks can get you in a jam and dwindle your profit.
Misjudging Cost And Profits:
One of the biggest mistakes that novice real estate investors make is Misjudging cost and profits. This can land you in a big mess, one that can cost you your business. You saw a property. You have a picture of its transformation in your head, which made you so overzealous that you underestimated the cost of buying and repairing the property. Eventually, when this will become apparent, you will lose half or more of your profit. You can avoid making this mistake is by diligently including all possible costs, and even after that, increase that about my 15% to 20%.
Do the exact opposite while you are calculating the estimated profit. A smart investor never underestimates the cost; this is known as the lowball strategy, and apply things will seldom lose you money.
Losing Track Of Your Property.
Never leave your property at the mercy of your renters. No matter how polite or nice your renters are, you need to make sure they are taking care of your property. It will be a poor lookout if you enter your property after years, when your tenant moves out, to find it in ruins. Renters can wreck a house so bad that even a security deposit won’t be enough to set it right. No matter how many properties you are investing in or buying or renting out, make sure you occasionally visit all of them.
Your frequent visits will keep the renters on their toes; also make sure that you get a house inspection done every time a renter moves out. Keep the communication channel with your tenants always open, make sure they know you are vigilant and, on their case, always. Occasional friendly visits, to ask how your tenants are doing, will be enough to know if the property is doing well or not.
Property Management Isn’t A Game:
Property investment and real estate is a full-time job; you can’t treat it as a hobby or your side business. Soon enough, it will take over your life. Property management takes both time and commitment. Know your numbers, know your strategies, have a team that can help you out when you are stuck someplace else. Record all your expenses, manage your books and also keep track of your taxes. Not only this but in time you will repair, maintain and add more to your property; this will add value to your property and also help you realize the actual cost of the property. Any improvement that you make to the house adds to its value.
These are the most common mistakes that real estate investors make and have made in the past; make sure that you do not repeat these mistakes any time soon.
If you’d like to talk more about property management, or you need help with Everest Property Management, please contact us at Everest Realty.
As a top producing Realtor and Property Manager; Terry specializes in sales, extensive construction homes, rentals, REO’s, short sales, and all aspects of Real Estate. After graduating the University of Michigan with a master in MBA, Terry continued his endeavor and now has over 15+ years of experience in the Real Estate world. If there is anything that has to do with Real Estate and sales, you can always be sure of Terry to provide important, specialized knowledge.
