We get asked a lot “What makes a successful property investor?”. It’s a very expansive question that has a huge scope for answer. Here are our TOP 8 tips to be a successful property investor. These tips are commonalities across the board of the best property investors vs. the rest. All of these are learned skills and traits that don’t involve inheriting lots of money or having parents who are property tycoon.
Our TOP 8 tips to help you become a success property investor
A successful property investor is consistent
There will always be ebbs and flows, high and lows, wins and losses. You will have your fair share of good and bad luck. The market and strategies and lending and regulations will continually change. This is the same for all of us. Those who keep going and keep growing, slow and steady sometimes, get there in the end, and in their own time. Those who embrace the change and see it as an opportunity evolve with the market. The Progressive Property co-founders have lost count of how many people flew out of the blocks hard and fast but then fell off the radar after a couple of small knock backs. Remain consistent is key to becoming a successful property investor.
A property investor always follows V.O.F.M
A simple 4 step model we created at Progressive Property of what to keep focused on through all cycles.
In order these 4 steps are:
- Viewings – try and maintain the number of viewing you attend each week or month etc.
- Offers – don’t be worried about getting the ‘perfect price’. Trying to shoot for the BMV (Below Market Value) property is a sure fire way to miss out on create opportunities.
- Finance – you need to secure financing, either by JV (Joint Venture) or utilising your credit opportunities with the banks. Without finance you don’t go to view, if you don’t go to view you don’t offer and the whole system spirals away from you.
- Management – the most tedious aspect is management because it consumes the most amount of time and resources. If you don’t look after your tenants or serviced accommodation properties it will slowly start to decay.
In almost all cases where people drift away or give up, it is worth checking to see if they are maintaining consistent V.O.F.M. Most of the time they are not. This needs to be be maintained, even if it is only a couple of viewings a week and two offers a month.
It doesn’t matter how much, it matters how long, and it is not complicated. It is not supposed to be as it’s the core of being a successful property investor. Imagine if you kept that up for a decade. V. O. and F. relate to buying and owning property, M. relates to ongoing management and cashflow of property.
A balanced view & emotional management
We’ve seen 1000s of “I’m so excited” people who can’t maintain the energy. We’ve also seen just as many glass half empty people too, who get sucked into believing the critics and haters. When people say “you can’t” they usually mean “I don’t know how”. But being hyper positive without balancing the risks and downsides is also dangerous. Try to see both sides of all situations, and you will maintain more consistency and enduring success. Manage your emotions when you get offers rejected, down valuations, finance pulled at the last minute; because these are all normal and have happened to EVERY successful property investor.
Real understanding of assets and passive income
It takes time to set up assets and create ongoing passive income, but not a lifetime. It can be done, just not overnight. You need to set to forget. You need to work hard enough not to have to work hard. But if you don’t set up assets that pay passive, residual income, you’ll be working until you die. Invest as much of your time into property assets as you can. Set them up securely, manage them well, systemise them, build up your power team around them and periodically check them. There’s also nothing wrong with active income, you could choose to have both.
Successful property investors continuously learn
If you plateau, be it from job to entrepreneur, or single let to multi-let strategies, or comfortable to successful, you grind to a halt. Then you die out. We saw so many experienced investors disappear after the 2008 crash, because they didn’t embrace the new landscape and the evolved cashflow and capital strategies. The education on yourself never stops. Not just property strategies and investing, but understanding yourself, managing relationships with people, the methods of finance raising, marketing, money, markets and more. It’s a continual journey of learning and growing.
Develop property investor contacts and connections
Another asset that continually builds over time is your power team; your black book of great, well connected contacts. More access to finance, brokers and lawyers and partners. You can never know enough good people. Keep building and nurturing good relations and equitable partnerships on an ongoing basis. People start well but often go underground when someone doesn’t walk up to them with a briefcase full of cash after a couple of property networking event, such as our Multiple Stream of Property Income course or Serviced Accommodation discovery days. See your black book of contacts as an asset like you do property. Build and nurture it.
Problem solving (mentality)
There will always be problems. Sorry if you don’t want to hear it, but it is the reality. They will often happen when you least expect them and don’t want them. The timing will often be bad. This is the nature of problems. It doesn’t mean it can’t be done. In fact it filters out those not committed. Rather than melt down and blame the universe when issues arise, roll up your sleeves and tackle them head on. This can be done by you for big challenges and leveraged but managed by you for smaller ones. Those who continually solve problems and take responsibility for them grow. Those who don’t, decay. It is a mindset as well as a skillset to staying enthusiastic through consistent challenges, and this really separates the best from the rest.
Patience vs persistence balance
Stay hungry, stay humble, stay on track. So many people change course or lose enthusiasm or belief without giving it enough time to mature. A couple of knock backs and they’re gone. You simply have to keep going, you will get there if you stay consistent but not become so ‘persistent’ that you annoy and push people away. Remember you have time. Give it time and balance making it happen, versus letting go and allowing things to come in their own time. If things or people don’t result in the outcomes you want, stay gracious and keep the door open for future dealings. You never know when a vendor, agent or financier might come back to you.
Examples of successful property investors
Progressive Property have educated, nurtured and developed a whole host of successful property investors. The Progressive Property co-founders Rob Moore and Mark Holmer, combined own or invest in hundreds of properties across the UK
Their success allowed to then branch off into different ventures. They both founded Progressive Property which has engaged with thousands of potential property investors and helped them get their foot in the door and begin their property portfolios. Rob began his own successful podcasts and social media channels that have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and listeners.
We have Deal Packaging Expert Katy Wilson, who quit her high paid 9-5 job in order to enter the property investment market. In her first year she made 15 property deals. Her second year yielded £100,000 and her projections for 2022 are expected to exceed £320,000.
If you go further up the property investor tree you reach the true gods of the industry with people like Lakshmi Mittal. With a net worth of $14.9 billion, he commands a property portfolio worth in excess of £500m and owns a property on London’s ‘Billionaires row’.
What about property tycoon, Andreas Panayiotou? He was once the founder and owner of ‘Ability Group’, the UK’s largest private landlord and owned over 7000 properties before diversifying into hotels and commercial properties.
Final thoughts on what it takes to be a successful property investor
We all know there are no guarantees in life. Yet we witness and experience so many basic tasks slipping by the way side that contribute to people falling out of love with property. We have provided you with the TOP 8 property investor tips that will help you form a solid foundation on which your can build your property portfolio. Our TOP 8 tips on how to be a success property investor are easy to follow and will help keep you on the straight and true. Remember, as time passes these tips will become second nature to you and evolve to become your method of property investing.
Have a question or wish to find out more? Then simply get in touch with us today and a member of the team will be on hand to help.
