Looking for Success in Your Rental Property: Consistency Is Key

Most people get into real estate investing to make some extra income or create assets for retirement. However, as any of the long-term members of RHAWA will tell you, there is much more to property investment than simply buying a house, renting it out, and then collecting the money. If you are using property investment as a vehicle to improve your financial position, then being consistent with how you do things will be key to your success.

Achieving your goals in your business requires not just setting a goal but also creating a pathway to get there. What are your investment goals going into 2018? What are you goals for 2019, 2020, and 2021? If you want to purchase new property in 2 years, what are you doing each day/week/month to make that a reality?

If you want to become a better property manager, are you planning when to take RHAWA classes? Are you making sure that you block out time to become a better landlord? Even being consistent in the activities you promise yourself to do is important. It doesn’t matter if you attend online or in-person, it just matters that you are consistent in arriving to class for no one else, other than yourself. That’s true commitment and true commitment leads to true success.

Even outside of rental property investing, consistency is key. Consistency is having good screening criteria and applying those consistently. That helps you defend against a fair housing claim. It’s important to be consistent in your record keeping in case you need to go to small claims court or do an eviction. And these habits can’t start simply with a statement, “I need to keep better records!” You have to plan your habits. Not only so that you can keep better records but planning on how you are going to do that and developing those habits. Are you going to do your record keeping once a month when the rent is due? How often are you going to do your filing? Whatever system you choose to solve this problem, decide on it and then be consistent with the system.

Here at RHAWA we help our members all the time. Members who are consistent and organized have many more options in their rental business than those who keep bad records, don’t service notices properly, or don’t educate themselves. That consistency gives you, the landlord, a chance to handle situations in the way that you choose and not the way you are forced to handle it because a crucial piece of paperwork is missing or lost. It pays to be consistent!

Do yourself a favor and try out coming up with a true business plan for yourself:
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Step 1: Set achievable goals for both the near-term and long-term
Step 2: Create a plan to achieve those
Step 3: Consistently work on those habits

There’s not too many things in life that are as easy and 1-2-3 but this one has that element to it. This might take some time and some research. You might need to post to CONNECT forum or reach out to RHAWA. But if you can go into 2018 with solid goals, you’ll have a great year with many more to come in your business.