Thousands of people are finding out that real estate investing can bring in a lot of money when they learn the tricks of the trade. Some of the most valuable tricks to learn are the principles that will save time. Your life is made up of time. If you can make the income you desire, but still have time for your family, hobbies, and relaxation, you have benefited even more. How can a real estate investor get the most mileage out of his or her time investment?
First, it makes sense to get good training. You can learn from free website articles or from books. However, if you are not led through the steps by a skilled instructor, you will waste a certain amount of time learning things the hard way – through the proverbial school of hard knocks!
Books and articles help, but if you are really serious, you should probably consider taking a course on a particular Real Estate Investing Strategy that suits you best. Getting the training to be a licensed real estate agent will not prepare you for quick turn marketing, but it can help you by getting you into the MLS system. A better training course would be a live seminar conducted by an expert. This sort of class might run several thousand dollars, but if it prepared you for a lucrative career, it would be at least as valuable as a college course or two! Again, I can not stress enough that the experience and knowledge of the individual giving the information is crucial to your success.
Another important concept is that of prescreening your prospects. You can waste a lot of valuable time trying to make a deal with someone who wants everything their own way. By taking time to screen those who contact you, you can weed out the ones that are not serious about selling or buying.
A third way to get the most out of your time is to get as much of your business as possible either automated or delegated to other professionals. Start with good marketing materials. These drive people to the telephone. When they call, your voice mail gives them directions to the house and how they can see it. A lock box lets them in, and you have papers on the counter that answer any questions they might have. These materials will also tell them that they will need to either have money or acceptable credit.
So far, the only thing you had to do was set up the system. You don’t even need to personally show the house! Only now that the potential buyer wants the house, do you actually come into personal contact with them to make the sale.
Finally, save time by skipping the mistakes! Many people think that the way to make money in real estate is to buy a lot of rental houses and get a lot of HUD tenants. This can be a recipe for a monster! It is possible to be a millionaire on paper, in terms of equity, but to still have a negative cash flow. Any business is doomed if there is no cash flow to do business with, so make positive cash flow your first goal.
One way to learn the tricks of the real estate investing trade is to find a mentor that already has had experience in Real Estate Investing. Another way to learn is to visit the website that I have listed below. These helpful sites contain information about many training options as well as hundreds of articles about every facet of real estate investing.