Real Estate Investing Goals
Real estate investing goals vary by the investor. Some may want to start investing as a part-time, hobby-like venture. Others are in it for the long haul and want real estate investing to become their full-time job. Either way, you must have real estate investing goals that help you get where you want to go. Always include these goals in your real estate investment planning.
Remember the well-known SMART rules for goal setting: Goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Write them down, making sure you identify the goal specifically, how you’ll measure the accomplishment of that goal, confirm it is attainable and relevant to your long-term plans, and set a timeline for when it needs to be achieved.
Whether you are a part-time investor or becoming full-time, you should create a real estate investment plan that includes the above-outlined goals, and guides the timing of your acquisitions, and maintains your budget for each property. Maybe as a part-timer, you want to spend a weekend a month searching for property or work with a real estate investment Realtor who sets up a search for the type of property you seek. As you become more skilled at investing and managing your properties, you’ll want a complete real estate investment checklist to ensure you’re covering all the bases for each aspect of your business.
Examples of Real Estate Investing Goals
Think through what you want to get out of the time and money you put into real estate investing. You may identify just 3-4 broad goals, or you may choose to break out your plans into smaller goals.
Here are a Few Examples:
- Keep learning about real estate investing. Before you get very far into real estate investing, it’s always wise to begin with a foundational and proven real estate investing training program. Consider LeAnn Riley’s Proven Profit Formula Coaching Program (PPF), which provides online learning combined with weekly group coaching from LeAnn. In the 7-Step PPF program, you will learn in about 60 days everything you need to know to get started in real estate investing, or scale your business. The best part is what you will learn and share with other like-minded investors on the weekly group coaching calls. There’s much to learn with real estate investing, and you never really stop gaining new ideas, insights, tips and approaches. You may decide to study certain topics more in depth, and possibly implement some of them for your investing business: funding options like 1031 Exchanges, real estate investing in opportunity zones, or partnering with another trusted investor.
“Hi LeAnn, Thank you again for your Proven Profit Formula course!
We’ve learned so much and are now looking forward to finding our next investment.”
– GRANT & BROOKE
- Build a network of business associates. Building a network is necessary for the success of almost any business, and it’s a particularly important real estate investing goal if you want to build and grow. Your network will include lenders, investment-savvy Realtors, lawyers, accountants, construction and repair specialists, and even like-minded investors. The broader your network is, the more likely you are to succeed because each person you connect with provides needed skills and/or new ideas and approaches. It’s a good idea to create a real estate investing checklist of the types of connections you will need as you get into real estate investing.
- Diversify your portfolio. You are likely among many US investors, with money in stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Investing in real estate for purposes of diversification is a common real estate investing goal. Real estate investing is a way to spread out the risk in your portfolio. Generally, real estate is less volatile than the stock market and may prove to have a better return depending on your investing strategy. There are also methods to invest with tax-deferred dollars, such as with a 1031 Exchange or investing in real estate in opportunity zones. Some investors choose to diversify in terms of investing strategies. Maybe you have purchased 2-3 single family homes via the buy and hold strategy. Now you learn that owning multifamily buildings can often be more profitable. Or you decide to add short-term rentals like VRBO or Airbnb’s to your real estate portfolio.
- Increase profits from rentals. If you’ve done a complete cash flow analysis and negotiated the best price before you acquired an investment property, you have a pretty good idea of what your expenses and income from the property will be. But you’re not done yet. Now closely examine the data again to see where you might be able to optimize the numbers on each building and each unit to identify where you could increase your profits. Create a real estate investment property checklist to ensure you’ve looked at and analyzed each expense, plus the level of income. With a little fix-up you may be able to raise rents, or switch to tenant-paid utilities.
- Transition from working full-time or moving into retirement. Investing in real estate can be an appealing route to consider if your goal is to move from working for someone else to becoming your own boss. Most investing experts would advise you to keep your job until you’re well into building a successful real estate portfolio. Get the proper training and consult with your real estate investing mentor to ensure you are ready to move into investing full time. Many investors’ intent is to shore up their retirement income with continuous cash flow from their rental units.
- Create a legacy for your heirs, or consider philanthropy. A common real estate investing goal is to prepare for the future by ensuring that your heirs are well taken care of. Add this item to your real estate investing checklist and planning. Some folks just want to make sure they have enough financially to take care of children and grandchildren. Others might bequest money to a favorite charity or institution.
Whatever your real estate investing goals are, make sure you write them down by using the SMART approach: Ensure that each goal you set is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.