Pick An Area To Focus On And Focus On It!

Happy New Year!!  You may be reading this in early January even though I am writing this in December so I figured I’d throw that out.  Hope you had a great Christmas season as well.  It’s always my favorite time of the year.  Our December one year ago I think was still our best month Wholesaling.  We did 12 deals – which was insane.  Don’t let up in the holiday season – it can be a good time to get deals.

So this month I want to talk about Focus.  Real Estate investing in general has got to be the most distracting business out there.  I’ve never been in a business where you can be going in 10 different directions.  Using 10 different exit strategies and 10 different marketing techniques.  I am/was one of those people.  I thought I could be a “wholesaler/lease option/seller finance/subject to/fix and flip/short sale/REO/vacant land/note trader” Real Estate Investor.  Now I still think I “can” be this, it will take time.  I think there are some bad asses out there that are this Investor, but they are 10-20 years into the business.  Don’t try to be an expert in 10 different types of deals right out of the gate.  Perfect one – which means you are consistently making money from it – THEN move on to the next strategy.  Then have 2 strategies going for a while until both are making money – THEN add a 3^rd.  And so on.

And I mean that as far as what kind of deals you are focusing on.  The other types of deals will find you inevitably through your marketing that you are putting out there.  As an example – we are looking for Wholesale deals, but of course we come across deals that are under water (short sale), bank owned (REO), don’t want our cash offer but might take terms over time (seller financing), have a mortgage but can’t sell outright (lease option or subject to).  We are learning on how to make money on these deals, but it has taken time and takes some education.  So focus on what you are looking for and you will stay more on track.  If you are marketing for something – deals will find you.  Just stay focused.

The other thing to stay focused on is your geographic territory that you want to do deals in.  We live in the St Pete Beach area and I’m tempted to do marketing in Tampa, but it’s 45 minutes away.  That’s tough ground to cover, so we’ve decided to focus on St Pete and that’s it.  Sure, you can get to a point where you have people working for you that can cover the territory and that’s when you can expand, but don’t spread yourself too thin at first.  Focus on a territory and become the MASTER of that territory.  We focused on a low income area in St Pete and have done A LOT of deals because we did that.  We also built a reputation for doing deals in that area which has given us much more opportunity – met other investors, wholesalers, etc. that knew we focused on that area and they would give us deals because we were more familiar with the territory.  Get known in your territory and deals will find you without having to do any marketing.

So that’s why it’s important to Focus.  Focus on your strategy – is it Wholesaling, Fix n Flip, Lease Options, Seller Finance?  A lot of times that will tell you WHICH territory in your area will be the best geographic area to focus on.  Wholesaling – might want to focus on low to middle income areas – since you need to be able to flip for cash.  Fix n Flip, Lease Options, Seller Finance – you might want to focus on middle to upper middle income areas, or even high end based on your strategy.  That’s more based on what you would want to keep for yourself or if there is a big upside profit.

So really concentrate and focus on what you are looking to accomplish – especially if you are just starting out.  You can waste months or years learning all of the techniques and never making a cent in any of them because you were too busy trying to learn all of them.  Pick one, dig your heels in and take no prisoners.  Dominate it.  Then it gets easier, deals come to you easier, you are making money, THEN you can pick a 2^nd strategy to start “Dominating”. 

I may have been all over the place in this article, but I have seen too many people including myself get distracted by all the different ways to make money in real estate and have seen them make NO MONEY.  I still know pretty much nothing about real estate but I did finally focus and now have done 55+ deals in the last year.  The point is to make money, so don’t get hung up on learning everything, just pick one way and get it going.  Let’s make 2014 the year we finally DOMINATE our market and break thru.  Be sure to go to www.HowToWholesaling.com to get more great tips on dominating your market.

Make it a great year,

Matt & Courtney Larsen