Real Estate Investor Skills - Become More Proactive With These 5 Tricks
As a real estate investor, you always want to be ahead of the curve. After all, if you spend all of your time and money riding the trends after they have already hit or addressing property concerns once they have already become a problem, you are going to find yourself play catch up all of the time.
So, instead of allowing the world to pass you by and overwhelm you with greater expenses, higher purchase prices and last-minute tenant communications, you need to learn how to become a proactive real estate investor.
So, if you are ready to take the first step towards becoming a frontrunner in the world of real estate investment, here are some of the best ways to become a proactive real estate investor.
One of the first things you should do when you are learning how to become a real estate investor who takes imitative is look for the best available financing for your investments.
That is why at LendCity, we want to offer you a free strategy call to help you begin your search the right way. All you need to do in order to get started is click the link below.
1 - Learn to Be a Proactive Real Estate Investor
One of the unfortunate truths about real estate is that fact that many investors take the easy route and become reactive real estate investors instead of proactive investors, but what is the difference?
Essentially, a reactive investor is someone who allows themselves to act in response to concerns on the property, shifts in the market or upon reaching a deadline. They only act when they have to instead of taking action so that they do not need to later.
Meanwhile, proactive investors take the time and effort to get ahead of the game so that they can prevent concerns from arising later, or so they can be prepared to seize any opportunities that are available instead of hunting for them later.
While reactive investors may still experience some degree of success, they are far less likely to achieve the sustainable lifelong wealth than a real estate investor who takes initiative and learns to become proactive.
2 - The Benefits of Performing Preventative Maintenance
For many new real estate investors, property maintenance is simply the process of fixing things as they break. However, that is known as reactive maintenance, and it is actually a more expensive approach to maintenance in the long run.
Instead, what you want to do is to prioritise preventative maintenance – correcting problems at the first sign of trouble instead of waiting for them to become worse.
For example, if your tenant alerts you to a leaky sink in the kitchen, instead of waiting to see if water begins to pile up, you can go ahead and have the leak repaired. While this may seem strange at first because you will be spending money on a seemingly harmless issue, it is significantly cheaper than waiting for that leak to evolve into full blown water damage or mold growth and fixing it then.
One of the keys to mastering preventative maintenance is performing regular inspections on the property to ensure that everything is in good condition. This will allow you to catch concerns early, sometimes even before your own tenants.
3 - Do Not Wait for the Market to Come to You
One of the biggest mistakes that real estate investors can make is waiting for the market to change in order to suit their ‘ideal conditions.’ While it can sound promising to wait for prices or interest rates to adjust in order to become more manageable, often the opposite winds up being true.
For example, say the market is hot and a property you want to buy is currently $450,000 but you want to wait for it to come down at least $25,000 before you buy. Real estate is known for its reliable appreciation so before that property starts to come back down, it is likely to go up and may never come back to the low price you wanted to pay or worse someone else may decide it is worth it to buy the property while you are waiting, and they will be able to profit off of the appreciation you overlooked in favour of pursuing a lower purchase price.
While experts in the industry can usually make a reasonable guess based on market conditions when it comes to predicting downturns in the market, they are not always guaranteed. Many outside factors can turn a potential downturn into a massive spike.
An example of this is if the vacancy rate in a city started to rise, someone may predict a market downturn as a result. However, if an announcement is made regarding new jobs coming into the area, people are likely to start moving there and increasing the demand, thus raising property values.
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4 - Stay On Top of Lease Renewals and Tenant Communications
Another way that you can remain proactive as a real estate investor is by staying on top of all of your lease renewals and tenant communications.
Some real estate investors will wait until the last minute to confirm with their tenants whether they plan to renew their lease. This is a mistake because it give you less time to find a new tenant to take over the unit once the current resident vacates at the end of the term.
So, you should reach out to your tenants early to ask if they are planning on renewing when the time does come so that you can plan accordingly. It is still possible they may change their mind, but by talking to them you are more likely to be prepared.
You can also communicate with them during their tenancy and try to gauge how happy there are living in your unit and if not, what you can do to change their mind and rectify the issue so that you do not have to worry about turnover.
5 - Be Proactive – Get Pre-Approved Today
Finally, one of the best things you can do in order to become a proactive real estate investor is to get pre-approved for your real estate investments with our team here at LendCity. A pre-approval can provide you with your maximum purchase amount for your next property while also locking down the best available interest rate with one of our expert lenders.
So, if you are ready to start investing like a pro, give us a call at 519-960-0370 or visit us at LendCity.ca today and apply online. Alternatively, you can click the link below to book a free strategy call today.