In a special five-part video mini-series, I am excited to provide you with steps to help you dominate your deals. And this isn’t just talk. These are steps that we are using every day, so I can attest that they work.
You can access the introduction to the five-part series here.
But let’s move right into Step No. 1 here. In this lesson we are talking about your investment personality and your exit strategy. This is an absolutely critical piece—determining your investment personality—even before you find, evaluate, structure or position your deal to sell.
Understanding your investment personality is essential to the next steps. Because if you don’t know what is going on up here—in your brain—how do you even know what kind of deal you’re going to find, what you’re going to invest in and what you’re going to sell? This is super, super important.
My investment personality is easy to see: I’m just crazy. I love it when I can be in a highly leveraged world. I can be leveraged like up to the brim; I love it. I don’t know why. For me, in markets right for flipping, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m not going to buy-and-hold; I’m going to flip, flip, flip, flip. And then use the cash that we’ve made and go invest in a business or another cash-flowing piece of real estate or whatever it might be.
Some of you out there you might buy something and hold it to cash flow. You might like rent coming in every month, and that is totally cool. I like that, too. Keep in mind, your investment personality will dictate what your exit strategy is going to be on every single deal. That’s always the case.
For me right now, I’m not interested in rental properties, because Atlanta is such a crazy flip market I know if I can get my deal at the best price possible I can renovate it or I can build a new home. Then guess what? I’m going to sell it for a premium. I’m going to be able to take that capital and use it for reinvestment in the flipping business or to purchase a cash flow property.
Remember, it all starts from up here—your brain—and understanding what you want. Never, ever, ever make decisions from a position of not knowing what you want. Really understand what you want the outcome to be before you take that first step.
Take some time—whether it’s 30 minutes or an hour—to write down exactly what you want from your investing goals. Why real estate? Why this asset class? Why not stocks or mutual funds? There should probably be a good mix in your overall portfolio anyway.
But truly get a sense, a feel, for what works for you. Because then you can make the necessary decisions on what you like, such as flips, rentals, apartment complexes, strip malls, hotels or whatever it might be. Again, I want to reiterate: take 30 minutes or an hour to write down what you want and then you will be able to start taking action on finding deals.
I cannot stress how important this first step is. I did a lot of self-discovery. I remember when I first started out I had no idea what I was doing. I was 17 or 18 at the time and I just had a dream that I wanted to build a rock-solid real estate business—one that I could automate but one I could manage and not in just one city. I wanted to be in multiple cities, in multiple states and now that we approach that and as we are expanding our business from Atlanta to Charlotte, we’re constantly looking at whether a particular market makes sense to flip. Because that’s my default.
My default is always going to be flipping. My default is going to be the more aggressive investment strategy. That’s just the kind of person that I am. But I know if I can diversify my risk a little bit and if I can mitigate my risks by making smarter decisions, then I’m in the clear. But that only comes from understanding what I like and who I am and what my investment personality will allow me the flexibility to do.
That’s kind of important to take a look at, too, because I know right now I’m not going to purchase rentals. I know I’m not going to be happy with it; I’m just not going to do it. But that’s just me. For me, that enables me to go out and find the targeted, very specific investment opportunities that make sense.
So here’s my advice to you: take 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, or however long you need and really get an understanding of what you like as an investor. In our next post, we’ll talk about how to find your deals.
About the Author
Abhi Golhar is the host of “Real Estate Deal Talk” and Managing Partner of Summit & Crowne. Abhi uses a “value-added” approach to invest in real estate renovation, new construction and development opportunities in the Southeast United States. He actively educates and works with investors to deploy market-driven strategies that yield success. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan. You can find him on Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram – @AbhiGolhar.
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