5 St. Louis Property Rules Every Real Estate Investor Should Follow
The best real estate investors will tell you that in order to be successful in this business you’ve got to take certain steps to get there. Create a solid base of rules that will help you to achieve your goals and find a St. Louis property that will be profitable for you. The last thing you want is to spend valuable time and money on a St. Louis property that has no potential. Here are a few rules and criteria that everyone should follow to make the best decisions in your new real estate business.
Will the St. Louis Property Create Value?
In order to make money in this business you want to buy low and sell high, which means you need to buy a St. Louis property that creates value or one that you can add value to with work. Look for the seller that is just trying to get out from under a home they can’t maintain, the one that is just looking for a quick sale. You will be solving a problem for them so you may get a great discount on the St. Louis property. You can also look for the St. Louis property that could use a bit of work and determine how and what improvements you’ll be able to do that will add value to the property.
Leave Your Emotions at the Door
In order to make the best decisions for you and your business you’ve got to put your emotions away and be rational. This can be hard to do for investors who are just getting started because when they see competition they feel they have to do everything they can to get the property. This just leads to irrational and poor decisions that don’t turn out well. Always remember that the longer you stick with one property the longer it will take to start the next deal. Keep your emotions in check and look for the quality of deals not necessarily the quantity.
Do the Math
Before moving forward on any deal you should take care to do the math and figure out just where you stand. What can you afford? What work are you financially capable of doing to make the property more appealing? Be realistic and conservative with your numbers to get a clear idea of where you can go from here. If you have the numbers figured out from the start you’ll be less likely to be caught off guard by unexpected costs at closing. The bottom line is to know when to walk away from a St. Louis property that won’t be financially lucrative for you.
Plan for Everything
You should always plan for the unexpected. It’s true that you can’t plan for every single thing that could possibly go wrong, but you can have a plan and mindset in place in case they do. You should create plans and systems that will help you to handle unexpected events that could throw off your plans or ruin your business altogether.
Have a Winning Team
A business is only as strong as the team that runs it; this includes the real estate business as well. Build a team that will help to push you forward and moving toward new goals on each deal. You’ll want to include a real estate agent with experience in your area of investing, a contractor, mortgage broker, contractors, accountant and a handyman. Choose reputable and reliable people with experience to be part of your team, you’ll lean on them a lot more than you think. The better relationship you have with your team, the better off your business will be.
In order to be successful in real estate investing you need to build and follow a firm set of rules that benefit your business. You don’t want to lose valuable time and money simply because you didn’t have a good team or plan in place to guide you through the process. Using this checklist you should build a list of rules to follow that will help you stay on track to build a better real estate investment business.