As a beginner, organizing real estate investors is key. I once wrote a book on how to stay organized as a real estate investor and a lot of the things I did then changed. However, I still keep a phone record, especially when I have a house for sale, one for rent, or want to buy something. I used to keep it in a spiral notebook of the kind used by high school kids and kept it next to the phone. I made an entry of the date and the beginning of the day. I never wrote down the time a phone call came in, but I made them in order so that I could almost tell you what time of day.
Those phone records have been helpful so many times when I have needed to contact someone because what I thought was going to happen didn’t happen and now I needed a new buyer, a new tenant or maybe other circumstances changed and I could go back to people who were interested right away on what you had to offer or that they had something to sell that you might be willing to buy. That’s my biggest tip: create a phone log and keep it by the phone. Keep it in a place that everyone in your office knows where it is, if you are out of your office, you can call back someone who can get a phone number from that phone record quickly and easily for you.
The other thing I still do is keep things in folders, each project is in a different folder and those folders move from time to time as the projects progress.
I also have a daily timer and on that daily timer I have the phone numbers of key people. We should all have our team: Our Title Company; Our Mortgage Company and a Loan Agent; A surveyor; an appraiser; a home inspector; a very good real estate agent … the list goes on.
I hope your list contains some of your real estate investor friends and if you don’t have any then there’s a Nareia cruise. [Nareia stands for National Real Estate Investors of America] leaving Fort Lauderdale on February 7, 2009 and returning on the 14th. That might be a good place to meet some. Another good place to meet other real estate investors is your local club. Find a club that has people who are excited about real estate investing. They can be your allies when you get stumped. And I don’t know of anyone who hasn’t been stumped at least once or twice.
I have found that sometimes just talking about a situation with friends gets ideas flowing.
Just saying it out loud helps. Finally, the right idea comes to mind or to the minds of my friends. And then that feeling of perplexity goes away. That is also part of your team. Keep those phone numbers handy.
I keep a few things in the trunk of my car, mostly empty black garbage bags. If I go to a house that a tenant has just moved out of, I usually need at least one. While I’m there looking at things, I could also leave a garbage bag for someone else to fill.
I keep my digital camera with me, whether it be buying, selling and fixing all stages of things. It’s a good record. I don’t have to write much. It’s a good way to get organized. Download that on your computer. Then you can print the photos you need and put them in the appropriate files.
Now I still have a three ring binder for every property I own. Inside the three-ring binder there are dividers.
The first section is how I acquired the house and all the paperwork related to it.
The second section has to do with repairs and any other information about the water heater, dishwasher, etc., etc. including the paint that I used in that house.
The third section is my outlet … where I sold it or rented it and if I rented it and turned it into a rental then I would keep all my leases there. If I sold it, then I have my final statement. It is really nice if you need to evict a tenant. You have everything you need in a three ring binder. You can simply take the folder to court or an IRS audit, it’s all there: where you paid for the property, the repairs; and how much you made when you sold it … one property at a time.
They sit great on the shelf. I keep the address of the properties in this folder. You could also keep an extra set of keys there. Today, the Title Company put the information on a CD and those CD holders fit quite well in those three-ring binders.
Then their time comes and that is the most important aspect of management. Each day you should write: What is your purpose for that day; what is your goal for that day. Doing this allows you to keep it in perspective. It can be a motivation to make sure it gets done.
Always separate the important from the urgent. I get a ton of emails every day, most of them are not important, but all of them say urgent. Sometimes your family will try to interfere and there are times when you must allow it. Are important. There are other times when your family’s requests are not as severe and could be temporarily put on hold.
What Oprah has to say on any given day might seem important to Oprah, but it may not be as important to what you are doing. Remember … it could be a soccer game that might be important to that team to get them to the playoffs, but it might not be that important to your business. I’ll just say that you need to do the things you need to do, do first and then let other things happen.
Take time to relax and have fun. There is no point in earning a lot of money and not enjoying every day. Gratitude will take you a long way to success. Pay attention to other people’s needs, but stay focused. If I have a large project, I like to use a milestone chart. I know the day I want to end and the day I want to start.
For me, it is known that my team started working on a house that I want to rehabilitate the same day that I meet to close. The money is already in the Title Company and I know it is going to close and I let my team get to work. They have been instructed on the things to do first. Not all of you would take that risk and not all of you should. For me, I understand the time value of money and it makes sense to do things as quickly as possible.
For the rest of you, manage your time well. Everyone is given the same amount of time every day. There are some shortcuts and you will learn them as you go and your office will function differently than the others. That’s the way it should be. It is your office and it is your personality. But make it as efficient as possible.