Now Is A Great Time For Part Time Investors
By JD Esajian on October 21, 2013
Investing in real estate may be accomplished in as little as seven hours a week. However, others may prefer investing 70 hours of their time every week. Many investors start out in the business looking to close one deal a year and experiment with the business on a part time basis. They can do this because the real estate business has evolved into something that can be done from your computer, your phone and at your own pace. You can easily find information about any property on various websites and conduct business with realtors through text and email. There has never been a better time for part time investors in the real estate industry.
Depending on the job you have, you may be able to take those skills and transition them to your real estate business. Marketing, technology, social media, finance and accounting are all vital parts of the real estate business. You can actually be more productive working only a few hours a week if you are working on the right things. You will have to sacrifice some time on nights and weekends to make up for your lost day time, but if you really want to get started in real estate you can.
The best way to get more involved, if you are working full time somewhere else, is to hire a bird-dog for your properties. If you are good with numbers and evaluating properties, you can have your bird-dog look at prospective houses and take pictures of every room and all street views. This is not an ideal way to see a property, but you can make it work if the pictures are strong enough. You can even send a checklist with your bird-dog and have them fill it out. This will give you a sense of the property without actually being there. What you lose in time, you can make up for in creativity and resourcefulness.
If you still want to get involved, but aren’t ready to take the leap, you can look to partner up on your deals. This may give you access to many more deals that you would have not been able to be a part of. You won’t make as much as you would if you were working on the deals yourself, but any profit is better than nothing. This keeps your revenue stream going, keeps you in the business and may just show you that you can be a successful full time investor.
To truly take your investing business to the next level, you will eventually have to dedicate more time and decide if you can do this full time. The more deals you get involved in, the more problems you will have and the more time you will have to spend dealing with them. Handling problems one at a time on one deal is not the same as when you are working on 3-4. Everything is multiplied. This takes time over the course of your day and you may not be able to do that from your full time job. If you can get these deals to close, you may be able to make enough money where you can see the benefit.
The beauty of real estate is that you can do it on your terms and in your time. Some investors prefer closing only a few deals a year and sticking with their full time job. Others are looking to make the leap, but aren’t sure they can hack it as a full time investor. With the technology available today, you don’t have to make that decision. You can do both as long as you like.