April 2016

The 7 Seemingly Innocent Habits Holding You Back From Success

What big things do you want to accomplish this year? Are you going to start a new business? Double the revenue in your existing company? Write a best-selling book? Lose 50 pounds?

Goals are great, and you should definitely have them. But goals can easily be sidetracked when something bigger comes into the picture: habits.

Now, of course there are plenty of good habits that an entrepreneur should have . . . but what about the bad ones? We all know some habits are obviously bad, like smoking or excessive drinking. But for entrepreneurs, the distinction between “good” and “bad” habits is often blurry and situational.

Therefore, I want to lay out seven habits that, although seemingly innocent, can actually hurt your chances of achieving your goals this year.

But first…

***Hey, you! Yes, you! If you are reading this post, you’re likely interested in growing your business and building wealth. If so, I want to invite you to this week’s BiggerPockets Webinar, How to Use BiggerPockets to Become a Rockstar Real Estate Investor. We’ll be talking about how to harness all the tools BP has to offer in order to find partners, lenders and sellers, build your reputation as an investor, and much more! Hope you can make it! And now back to the post!***

1. Checking email

How many times a day do you check your email? More than once? That’s probably too much.

Email tends to be the thing people do when they don’t want to do what they should be doing.

I know you think you need to be in your email throughout the day, but chances are, your addiction results in your putting off the one thing in your life you really should be focused on right now. So, make an effort to reduce the amount of times you check your email.

Related: 10 Seemingly Harmless Habits That Sabotage Ambitious Millennials

Set up smart “filtering” criteria, unsubscribe from email newsletters you no longer need to read (I just unsubscribed from over 1,000 newsletters, using Unroll.me), and get people used to your responding just once a day.

2. Logging onto Social media

Let’s be honest: We all spend way too much time on social media.

Whether your social media habit leads to your sitting “in the john” a bit too long, or to a quick status update that turns into 35 minutes of mindless scrolling through your newsfeed, this habit can quickly take over the limited time you have to be productive.

So, do yourself a favor and limit the time you spend on social media.

For me, Facebook is my “go-to time-waster.” That’s why I installed theFacebook Newsfeed Eradicator, which essentially shuts off the Facebook newsfeed on my laptop. This alone has saved me several hours per week.

3. Procrastinating

Yes, procrastination is a habit. It’s often much easier to say “tomorrow” than “now.” But the things we procrastinate about are often the very things that most need to be done now.

So, instead, make it a habit to “time-block” your most important things to ensure they get done on schedule today, not tomorrow. For more on-time blocking ideas, don’t miss “This Productivity Hack Completely Changed My Life, and It Can Improve Yours.”

(click to continue reading on BiggerPockets)

P.S. looking for hard money loans in California? Be sure to check out my friends over at northcoastfinancialinc.com. They have very competitive rates, can fund within a week and specialize in fix and flip loans and other hard money loans.

Want to Lose All Your Money & Cry Yourself to Sleep? Make These 4 Newbie Mistakes!

You know that I love you, right?

Maybe not the “I want to have your baby” kind of love, but the “I’m about to yell at you, and I’m doing it because I care” kind of love.

Don’t you feel special?

Now, as the title suggests, this post is geared toward newbies.

But what’s a newbie?

I would define “newbie” as anyone who doesn’t feel like they “know it all” in real estate yet.

Yes, that means you. And me. And of course, Ben Leybovich. (But not Brian Burke, ’cause that guy really does know it all.)

So, really, this post is for anyone who is trying to build their real estate empire.

That means you! So keep reading.

These are the four mistakes newbies can’t seem to help making — but not if I have anything to say about it!

1.) “I Can Do It All Myself! I’m Superman!”

As a real estate investor, you wear a LOT of hats. giphy

One day you are a home inspector. The next day a master negotiator. The next a marketing wizard. Then a manager. Sometimes a plumber.

And that’s not a bad thing, necessarily. When you first start, you don’t have a lot of cash to use to hire other people, and you need to use what you have.

However…

The problem is newbies tend to stay in that state for FAR too long.

Like, years.

If you are trying to build a real estate business, begin thinking NOW about the systems you can outsource. Can you hire someone to clean toilets while you look for deals? Can you hire someone to answer phone calls and pay them on a per-deal basis? Can you buy such great deals that the cash flow covers management?

(And yes, Ben, you can buy properties that cash flow enough to cover management! You just gotta look harder!)

(click to continue reading on BiggerPockets)

P.S. looking for hard money loans in California? Be sure to check out my friends over at northcoastfinancialinc.com. They have very competitive rates, can fund within a week and specialize in fix and flip loans and other hard money loans.

Single family homes can be a great investment!

They are often far easier to manage than multifamily, they usually rise in value fairly quickly, and there are numerous ways to finance such a purchase.

But for most people, the process to buy a single family home is still too confusing.

That’s why today I decided to boil down the process for buying a single family home intoseven distinct “vital steps.” Use this guide as a sort of “road map” for your future as you search for and buy your next single family home.

Let’s get to the seven vital steps to buying a single family rental home!

tax-efficient-business

1. Do Your Research

There are a LOT of single family homes out there.

According to Census Bureau: 133,957,180.

So, when you decide that you want to buy a single family rental house, you need to narrow down the options just a tad. This is why the first step is research. 

Now, research includes two different categories:

  • Education: Do you know what you are doing? If not, there are plenty of articles,podcasts, webinars, and books here on BiggerPockets that can help you with that.
  • Location: Do you know exactly where you want to buy? This will dramatically help you narrow down the possible choices.

I wish I could simply tell you the best kind of single family rental house to buy — but I would be lying.

Because I don’t know you!

The perfect investment is one that helps you best accomplish your goals. (Tweet that!)

So what do you want? Start there and work backward.

  • Maybe you want to buy just a few really nice houses in really nice areas, and wait for appreciation to double the value of those homes.
  • Maybe you want to buy low-income housing and let all the cash flow allow you to quit your job.
  • Maybe something in between.

The point is you need to do some research before you jump in. But assuming you’ve done that, or at least are doing it, let’s move on.

(click to continue reading on BiggerPockets)

P.S. looking for hard money loans in California? Be sure to check out my friends over at northcoastfinancialinc.com. They have very competitive rates, can fund within a week and specialize in fix and flip loans and other hard money loans.