I’ve been investing in real estate for a good 20 years and have built up a large network of experts from the real estate industry over the years. During this time I learned 10 important lessons about real estate investing that I would like to share with you in this article. Take Zaki Ameer who understood little about market cycles when he first began investing.
10 things I learned about real estate investing
- It’s never too early to start investing in real estate. But if you wait too long, for example because you want to save even more equity for your first property or your financial situation just doesn’t allow it at the moment, then you will look back at some point and ask yourself: “Why am I not scared back then overcome and started investing in real estate much earlier? “
- If you don’t have enough equity for your first property yet, that’s no reason to give up your dream of becoming a successful real estate investor right away. There are ways and means you can improve your financial situation and become more attractive to banks. Be creative. Look around for new sources of income. Build up your equity bit by bit. And download my free checklist on how to invest in real estate without equity .
- There are a hundred different ways you can invest in real estate . But the truth is … there is no such thing as “one strategy” or the “best” way to successfully invest in real estate. All strategies work. Choose an investment strategy that works best for you personally. That fits your location , your job and your passion. Once you have found a suitable strategy for making money with real estate , put all your energy and work into it.
- The 80/20 rule (the Pareto principle ) is known to be applicable to everything. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a big Pareto fan. I try to apply the 80/20 rule to everything in my life, including real estate. The Pareto principle also applies perfectly to most real estate deals. 20% of your real estate deals account for 80% of your bottom line. So you’d better buy less real estate, but invest in really good and worthwhile properties.
- Professionalism and reliability are important characteristics. Don’t make the mistake of investing on the side. Never conduct your real estate business solely as a “hobby investor”. Your investments need your full attention and you always need to use a system, math and the appropriate mentors and experts.
- Don’t just buy real estate. Buy real estate objects that are undervalued and promise a high increase in value on the German real estate market . While these require a lot more work and patience, these are the properties that make you wealthy. In addition, you have to build up a system to constantly get to the best properties or to know realtors who will be the first to provide you with promising exposés. But it’s all worth it.
- In order to expand your real estate portfolio and buy more properties, you have to make more offers. In order to be able to submit more offers on worthwhile properties, you have to analyze more properties. And in order to be able to analyze more properties, you have to take your time every day or delegate this task to an expert.
- To become a successful real estate investor, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Read lots of books on real estate investing , listen to audiobooks on the subject, see what others are doing and learn what works. Follow people who have achieved what you want and hole them up with questions. Find successful strategies, adapt and improve them.
- The best real estate deals in the world are all useless if you don’t hire a good property manager to manage the property after you buy it. It must be clear to you from the start that your investment does not end with the purchase of the property – it only begins here. Of course, you can do everything yourself, but if you want to run this game professionally, you should delegate the management of your rental properties. The property and rental management should be outsourced to a reliable and external service provider. So you don’t have to deal with the bureaucracy and tenants yourself and you can even have your tenants pay the costs for property management.
- The road to wealth is a slow and often rocky road. This path is often an exponential curve. You work hard for your success for many years and for a long time it seems like you are not getting anywhere. But one day you wake up, look back and see the mountains that you have climbed. In that moment you realize … that every step was worth it!
These are you most important lessons I’ve learned as an investor over the past two decades. Stick to these tips and you won’t make the same mistakes that I made.
Now that you’ve read my 10 most important tips and lessons from my 20 years as a real estate investor … What is your biggest lesson you’ve learned while investing in real estate?
Share your experiences with me in the comments below this article.
