When you’re new to the world of real estate, it’s easy to assume that success requires the biggest portfolio you can put together. In reality, your long-term gains will depend on maintaining the most robust portfolio – size ultimately has little to do with it.
If you’re trying to assemble a real estate investment portfolio that is as strong and healthy as possible, there are a few core tips you’ll want to focus on as your career begins to ramp up.
The Importance of Thorough Market Research
When it comes to real estate investing, you never want to enter into a situation that you don’t fully understand from all angles. That is what market research is all about.
What are the average property values in a particular area? How have they changed over the last year, and in what direction are they trending? What about the rental rates? Are there any emerging market trends? What attractions or points of interest will be built over the next decade? What is the local job market like? Are the schools of high quality? What notable consumer preferences are there?
Market research involves finding out the answers to all of these questions and more so you can determine whether the time is right to enter a particular market.
Note that this also highlights the importance of due diligence when it comes to deciding not only what area to invest in but what type of property to select as well. Look into all property disclosures that you can find. Go into detail about the property’s potential for appreciation. Get it appraised and perform your own inspection. Do all of this before you even think of adding it to your portfolio so you know not just what you’re getting into but what you could potentially get out of it as the result of a best-case scenario.
Diversify, Diversify, Diversify
Along the same lines, it’s important to diversify your portfolio as much as you can so that there is no “single point of failure” that you have to worry about.
In a basic sense, this means that you shouldn’t invest exclusively in one type of property. If all your money is in commercial real estate and the commercial real estate market suddenly tanks, you’re in deep trouble.
This idea is also what makes wholesale real estate so attractive to many people. Here, you’re acting as a kind of “middleman” between a buyer and a seller. You arrange one price with the seller and a higher price with a buyer, keeping the difference. It involves a few additional steps beyond a traditional real estate transaction, but it also means that there is more diversity in terms of the types of transactions you get to be a part of.
Understanding Risk Tolerance
The real estate industry is absolutely one of those fields where the phrase “high risk, high reward” applies. But never forget that the operative word in that phrase is “risk.”
Building a successful real estate portfolio doesn’t mean you should never take risks. Depending on what your goals are, sometimes you’ll have to. You just need to be aware of those risks before you have to face them. You should have at least some type of plan in place that you can fall back on should things not go the way you want. If a situation seems riskier than you’re comfortable with, it isn’t for you – it doesn’t have to get more complicated than that.
Note that this idea will play out in other ways, too. By focusing on emerging trends, there will naturally be some situations that pay off handsomely and some that don’t. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to capitalize on something while it’s still in its nascent stages. It just means you must be aware that you’re increasing the risk of exposing yourself to.
This is also why it’s so important to proactively optimize your cash flow. You need to make sure you have the money available to capitalize on these trends early so you’re not forced to watch them pass you by.
The Significance of Setting Clear Investment Goals
Obviously, if you want to build the most successful real estate portfolio you can, you need to define what “success” looks like. That’s why setting clear investment goals is not a recommendation but a requirement.
Note that these goals must be realistic and specific. Don’t just tell yourself, “I want to be a millionaire and retire in the next five years,” if you’re just starting out. Do you want to have a specific number of sold properties? Do you want to be able to support your family financially as a result of having made real estate investing a career? What metrics will you use to track your progress?
The clearer your investment goals are, the easier it will be to identify the steps you need to take to achieve them.
Additional Ways to Create a Successful Real Estate Portfolio
On your journey towards creating the most successful real estate portfolio that you can, you should never assume that there is a “one size fits all” approach to financing. You don’t just have to contend with a conventional bank loan. Hard money loans, private money loans, and even tapping into your home equity are all viable choices.
But more than anything, you need to maintain a long-term vision when slowly building your portfolio, brick by brick. Becoming an “overnight success” in real estate is exceptionally rare. Even the people who do come off as if that were the case had likely put in years of hard work before their labor began to pay off.
Set long-term, realistic goals for yourself and put a plan in place to slowly achieve them. Consistency is absolutely crucial here. If you’re confident in the plan, don’t waver from it. Every property you acquire should be purpose-driven. It should put you further down the line toward your goal, not just be something you’re doing for the sake of it.
In the end, by maintaining a blend of proactive management while also being able to adapt to market fluctuations as needed, you’ll be well on your way toward mastering the essential tactics to cultivate a successful and resilient real estate portfolio.
Slowly but surely, success will start to build upon itself, generating its own momentum. Before you know it, yours will be the career people look at and assume was the result of some “overnight success.”