Business and Marketing Plan

General Real Estate Investing
1

Anyone use a business plan in their investing business?

2

Real estate investing has got to be the simplest business to understand.

Here’s my 2-step, buy-and-hold, business plan:

  1. Find a deal.
  2. Buy the deal.

I know this sounds more like a goal, than a plan, but what other business plan would you need?

Getting all jacked up on business plans, just complicates things; does not speed up the process; and serves to justify a boatload of procrastination. Once you’ve got a critical mass of business going, and you’ve got to bring in help, or contract with partners, a business plan is just busy work. It’s the same as fiddling and fussing over LLC’s, when you’re not worth a dime yet. When you’ve got a quarter million in the bank, then worry about how to protect your assets. Short of that, and there’s little to actually protect. FWIW

Perhaps you could list the steps necessary to find a deal, and another list of step to actually buy the deal. I don’t know.

I just learned as I went. I had plenty of help from professionals along the way, and didn’t have to become an expert in minutia in order to start, or keep going.

Go find and invest in a deal first, and then worry about a business plan.

3

Sounds good, thanks Javipa.

I was thinking something along the lines of a consistent marketing plan- sending out this many postcards to these houses, on this day every month…that kind of thing.

Something to keep me on track so I know what to do every day.

Simple is great and I like that-

  1. Buy houses

I guess it feels good to know exactly what the best money making action item is and that’s what I was trying to come up with…a plan of what to do all day every day during the working hours. Some kind of successful routine so I don’t bounce around, something to maintain focus.

Thinking out loud here…
Monday-Friday mornings: market check on the MLS, check for new probate/divorce/etc, go through new actives and check out expireds, add prospects to CRM and mailout
Weekly- Drive for dollars and mailout to those, enter into CRM
Monthly- large monthly mailout

Monday afternoon- CRM followup
Friday afternoon- Bandit sign check/new signs up

As soon as the cash out refi from this house goes through, we expect in a couple weeks or less, we’ll be ready to go on mailouts and looking for the next house.

I tend to jump on opportunity when it presents itself, even if it’s not in the big picture of what I want to do (consulting work, estate sales, you name it)

Wondering if anyone else lays out their plans and goals in writing to maintain focus, or no lists, just action.

4

Thinking out loud some more

Business and Marketing Plan for 2018

#1 Buy Houses

Goals
Actions
Marketing Plan
Financials

Goals:

#1 Buy Houses- buy 3 more single family houses as buy and holds in x and surrounding area, to include zipcodes, a,b,c,d,e (I’ve got this narrowed down already)

Criteria- ARV $120k-180k rental rate $1300-$1900/month with minimum 20% equity after all repairs, preference on single-story

House #4- Start search November, mailout to 2000 homes ready by November 17, mailout on November 27, contract house 1 December/January, close by February/March.

House #5- Start search December, December mailout ready by December 15, mailout on December 27, contract house 2 by February/March, close in April/May.

I’m due with a baby #2 in March so better give myself March and April off. Because of this I want to do two mailouts before the end of this year to hopefully give myself a jumpstart on goals next year.

House #6 Start search May/June, contract June/July, Close Aug/September.

I was a little too ambitious with my goals this year so I’m trying to be more reasonable for 2018. I’ll probably look back on this post in a year and think this was too ambitious too, but oh well, would rather try and fall short than not try and fall short.

So that’s my general idea on a ‘business plan’ for real estate investing. Not so much a document for bankers to analyze, but a plan for my business/actions/goals etc.

5

Great information Javipa.
Really very useful post about business plan.
Thanks!!

6

Find a seller and market the heck out of it! Use Facebook, use Craigslist, use whatever tools you can find. Team up with another wholesaler, that’s a great way to get started most of the time!