How to Make Real Estate Investing a Full-Time Career

If youre interested in real estate investing, or you already dabble, the ultimate goal might be to make it a full-time career.

There are good reasons to want to do that.

Real estate investing can be lucrative, and it gives you a lot of freedom and flexibility.

Its often something thats glamorized, but making it a full-time career doesnt happen overnight, nor is it easy. nbsp;

Decide Which Type of Investor You Want to Be

Before you can make anything happen, you need to decide whether youll be an active or passive real estate investor.

A passive investor invests in deals but doesnt manage or operate anything beyond that.

A passive investor might go through a REIT, or they could purchase investments and then pay a company to manage it for them.

If youre an active investor, you manage your properties.

There are syndicators as well. Syndicators find good deals and secure capital from investors. As a syndicator, you then manage that asset for your investors.

Beyond the approach you want to take, you have to think about whether youre going to do vacation rentals, commercial properties, single-family rentals, multi-family rentals, or youre going to flip properties. Maybe you invest in real estate in multiple ways.

Clean Up Your Finances

If your goal is to go full-time as an investor, there are some things youre going to have to do personally as far as your finances first.

You need to be able to work toward building wealth, and debt and bad financial habits are going to prevent you from being able to do that.

First, be careful with your credit cards. Use them in a smart way. For example, if youre going to make a big purchase, maybe you use a no-interest card and then pay it off quickly.

Try to avoid any impulse purchases on credit cards, and if you have existing debt before you go full-time as an investor, you really need to have it paid off.

You should also make it a financial goal to build a solid emergency fund.

That way, if you have a nest egg, youre going to be more comfortable taking the risk of jumping into investing full-time.

Aim to have enough money set aside to cover six months of your living expenses without any other primary income. Leave your emergency savings alone and put it in an account thats liquid so you can access it if you need to.

Never Stop Learning

Before you even consider leaving your current job to do real estate full-time, make sure youre well-educated. Learn as much as you can about the basics, and dont ever stop.

Give yourself a good foundation to build on as far as your knowledge.

One of the biggest mistakes real estate investors make is not taking the time to learn the basics.

Create a Business Plan

After youve gotten your personal finances in order, and youve learned the basics of real estate and how to be a smart investor, then you need to view things as a business because thats what it is.

You need to have a specific business plan in place.

A business plan outlines your business model, and it states how youll raise capital.

Within your business model, you should have criteria outlined as far as what will be a good deal for you so that you dont buy anything impulsively thats outside of your typical parameters.

Consider your end-users in your business plan and how youll find deals.

When youre able to answer these questions, youre going to be in a good position to start your business or grow it.

Finally, to be a successful investor, youre going to need a strong team of people behind you.

In the beginning, you may be able to do most everything on your own, but as you grow, this wont be possible.

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Above everything else, if your goal is to go full-time with real estate investing, its not about feelingsits about having a concrete strategy and plan that will guide your business over the long-term.