6 keys to real estate investing success in 2018

Andrew la Fleur: On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about six keys to real estate investing success for 2018. Stay tuned.

Announcer: Welcome to the True Condos Podcast with Andrew la Fleur, the place to get the truth on the Toronto condo market and condo investing in Toronto.

Andrew la Fleur: Hi, and welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for listening and thank you for your support for the show. I really appreciate it, especially when you leave a review or you share the podcast with somebody that you know. Tweet it. Facebook-share it. Please email to someone. Please do that. It helps get the word out about the show so that more people can learn and benefit from all the great content that we’ve been putting out here for about three and a half years now, so thank you.

Today’s episode, as I mentioned, we’re going to talk about six keys to real estate investing success in 2018. We’re at the start of 2018. I thought it was a good time to, as we’re getting ready to jump into high gear here into the real estate market this year, we’re already seeing some new launches for new buildings coming out, and the market is still very, very strong. We still have the perpetual problem of not enough inventory. There’s no supply out there to purchase. Prices are still rising rapidly, and there’s definitely a lot of upward pressure on pricing this year, so things are looking very good. It’s looking like a very active year once again in the market.

Probably not going to be the same year as 2017. Obviously, 2017 was a record-breaking year, and we probably aren’t going to see quite the same level, but I think this year will, in a nutshell, I think this year is going to surprise a lot of people of how strong and how good this year’s going to be. It’s looking like it’s probably going to be a very strong year, especially in the condominium market. As I said, a big driver of this is there’s no supply. Both on the resale side and on the pre-construction side, there is no supply, there’s nothing to buy. The inventory levels are very, very, especially for quality inventory, quality supply that people actually want to buy, there’s nothing out there.

As you’re thinking about 2018, if you’re a seasoned real estate investor or maybe you are new to the game, you’re listening to this podcast as a Padawan learner, as it were, and you’re learning the ropes before you jump in, either way, here are six keys, in my opinion, the six keys to real estate investing success for you in 2018.

Number one, number one is to set goals. Set goals sounds very simple, but it’s so important. You gotta have goals if you’re going to be a successful real estate investor, and I strongly encourage you to write them down, whatever your goal is, no matter how big, no matter how small, no matter how many goals you have, whether it’s one goal or 50 goals, write them down, put it in paper. There’s something that happens between your brain and your hand when you write something down. It makes it much more real and concrete. It makes yourself accountable to it. Put it somewhere on paper, write it down, and make sure you do come back and revisit that throughout the year to make sure that you are on track to achieving those goals.

Whether your goal is to buy one condo this year, maybe this is the year that you want to, this is the first year that you’re going to add more than one condo to your portfolio. Maybe you want to buy two or more condos or maybe this is the year where you really are ready to take a major leap, and you want to buy 10 condos or more, 10 properties or more. Whatever it is, I encourage you to write those goals down. Maybe it’s you want to enter into a new market this year, or maybe you want to, you’ve always bought one bedrooms, maybe you want to add a two bedroom or a three bedroom to your portfolio. Maybe you’ve always invested in the 905, you want to go downtown or vice versa. Whatever it is, I encourage you to set your goals and write them down.

Number two: Invest in yourself. I say this a lot on the podcast, but the biggest investment that you can make is in yourself. The best investment you can make is in yourself. Always be investing in yourself, in your learning, in your own development. Take a course. Read a book. Go back to school. Commit yourself to growth is what the most important thing is here, to growing and to learning and to improving yourself. Develop a new skill or capability this year. What could that be? What could that look like for you? Something new for you this year. Invest in ourself, and that’s always going to be the thing that gives you the biggest return on your investment is when you invest in yourself.

Number three: Find a mentor. Find a mentor. Learn from someone who has actually done the thing that you are trying to do. Go back to your goals and say, “What am I trying to do here? Who can I learn from? Who can be my mentor?” Whether it’s formally or informally, find a mentor and find somebody who’s done it, even if you’re just listening to this podcast. Maybe you’re new to investing or maybe you’ve got a couple of properties, but you’re looking to take it to the next level, keep listening to this podcast. I encourage you. Go back into the archives. We’ve got 180-something episodes, three and a half years of content. Go to truecondos.com, videos, articles. There’s so much free information that we’ve got for you. Use me as your mentor if you don’t have one. Feel free to do that, absolutely. Call me, book an appointment with me, and feel free to use me as your mentor, or find somebody else. Find somebody else who is a real estate investor who’s done what you’re trying to do and who can help you get to the next level.

On that note as well, just another quick point is stop listening to people who have never done anything or never done what you’re trying to do. So many times, I hear people’s plans for investing get derailed by listening to the advice or the words of people who have never actually invested in anything. To me, that’s just the saddest, dumbest, craziest and most unfortunate thing that you can do is when you’re taking advice on real estate investing in particular from people who have never invested in real estate.

Of course, the vast majority of people out there in the population in general have never invested in real estate. Sure, a lot of people own their own home. That’s great, but we’re talking about real estate investing, buying a property for investment purpose only, not to live in. Very few people have done that. Approximately, stats show about 5% of the population, so majority of people out there are not people you want to listen to. Find the people that have done it, and listen to those people.

Number four: Take more action and focus on execution. Focus on execution this year. Yes, it is important to learn and to find mentors and to, as I said, invest in yourself and to study the market and to understand different principles of investing and following the path of success that other people have already set before you. It’s important to do all that, but not lose sight of the fact that you gotta focus on taking action and taking execution. So many people get caught in this trap of just studying, studying, studying, and it’s like paralysis by analysis. You’re just constantly thinking about it studying it, looking into it, reading about it, talking about it, going to seminars, wherever it might be, taking courses, watching YouTube videos where you never actually do anything about it. Again, that’s very sad and unfortunate when I see that, and I see that a lot.

Focus on execution. Again, go back and write those goals down. Make sure those are action-orientated goals for the year. Maybe it’s, in terms of execution, things like buy the property. That’s the action you can take. Refinance an existing property and reinvest. That’s an action you can take. Maybe you have a property that’s underperforming, so divest, sell that underperforming asset and put that money into something else. Focus on action whatever that action might be for you and for your portfolio as you’re building it in 2018.

Number five key to success in for real estate investing in 2018: Reduce the noise. Reduce the noise that you have in your head and in your life. Simplify your life. Simplify your investments. I definitely encourage you to think about ways that you can do that. You don’t need a hundred mentors. You don’t need to read a hundred books. You don’t need to take a hundred courses. You don’t need to look at a hundred different possible investment options from every different type of property and every different type of market locally, nationally, internationally. Focus. Focus. Reduce the noise. Simplify your life. Reduce the number of voices that you are listening to and that you are letting in, and decide what feels right for you and what type of investing is right for you.

A lot of people who are listening to this podcast and are regular listeners and clients mine, obviously, they love condominium-investing because it is a very simple, straight forward path to investing. It’s very hands-free. Very minimal amount of effort and work required, especially when you’re buying pre-construction, brand new condos. You’re not fixing toilets, you’re not dealing with troublesome tenants. You’re dealing with very high quality tenants. Very easy to rent out these properties. Very minimal maintenance and upkeep required, and so condominium investing is great way to invest in real estate in a very simple form while still being a direct investor and a direct property owner. Hopefully, that makes sense to you, and if that is right for you, then focus on condominiums and focus on building your portfolio that way this year, and put aside the rest of the noise.

Number six, and the final point I want to just finally end on, think long term. Always take a long-term perspective on your own life, on your own goals, on your own investments, and of course, on the market itself. When you look at City of Toronto and the region of the GTA and the Golden Horseshoe region as a larger region, the future is very, very bright. There’s always going to be naysayers and doom-and-gloomers and “the sky is falling,” and there’s always going to be negative headlines that you may encounter on your day-to-day and week-to-week life, but every expert and every person with half a brain can easily look and see that the long-term future of the city, of the City of Toronto and of this greater region is very, very bright. Anybody who’s investing in real estate and understands that real estate is a long-term game and has the patience to play that game for the long term is going to do very, very well and has done extremely well and will continue to do very well if you have that mindset.

Set your goals with that in mind. Set your bigger goals, not your one-year goals, but your longer-term goals would serve that. I like to have this 25-year framework in mind myself, thinking in chunks of 25 years and thinking what can I accomplish if I have 25 years to do it? How big can I think? How big can I dream? How big can I make this portfolio? How much cash flow can I have coming in? How much net worth can I achieve? Think big. Don’t be afraid to think big, and don’t be afraid to give yourself 25 years to achieve those big goals.

Another thought on this point is Warren Buffett. He has one of his famous investing principles I’ve heard, don’t quote me in this, it could be from somebody else, but I think it’s a Warren Buffett thing where basically, he looks at a company, and before investing, he says, a simple question to ask is, is this company still going to exist in 25 years? Is this still going to be a good idea? This thing that this product or service that this company provides, is it still going to be something useful and good that people will want to buy in 25 years? If it is, then that’s most likely a good thing to invest in today. If something is not going to make sense in 25 years, then don’t invest in it today.

If you look at Toronto, if you look at this region, it makes so much sense right now, and I think the 25-year outlook for Toronto and the region is, the sky’s the limit. The sky is truly the limit of how far this city can go and how far we can grow and how high real estate prices and real estate rental prices are going to grow as this city matures and truly becomes a major global city.

There you have it. That is today’s episode, the six keys to real estate investing success for 2018. I hope you enjoyed that. Once again, leave a review of the show, if you don’t mind, on iTunes. I really appreciate that. Share this episode with somebody that you know, and of course, always make sure that you are subscribed, you are a True Condos subscriber by going to truecondos.com and signing up with your name and email anywhere on the site to make sure you are getting our weekly email updates. That’s the best way to keep informed on what’s happening in the market and opportunities for investment in the market.

Until next time, have a great week, and we will talk to you soon. Happy investing.

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