A Message to New Investors: Don't Wait for 2011

The holidays are upon us which means wonderful times with friends and family (and not so wonderful times shopping….which is why I do 90% of my shopping online!). Many people tend to slow down or even shut down with regards to their business in these last weeks, and if you’re still an investing “newbie” you may be tempted to just wait until 2011 to really get going.

You’re likely saying to yourself things like “Well, nobody is selling right now.” or “The deals will be better in the new year” or “Things are just too busy to work on real estate investing right now.”

No matter what stories you’re telling yourself, I’d like to urge you today to gain some momentum in these last six weeks prior to the new year. If you’re concerned about getting overwhelmed, I have a suggestion for you:

Choose just one accomplishment for each week for the rest of this year and knock it out of the ballpark so you can end the year strong.

I’m not talking about huge accomplishments that have 10-20 steps that have to be taken. I’m talking one focused task that you can accomplish within a week even with all of the holiday planning, shopping, and working that you’re doing.

Here are six ideas for you to get the wheels turning (plus some awesome reference blog posts for you to check out):

1.) Get organized with a 7-day action plan

2.) Research investing strategies and determine your desired area of focus (BiggerPockets blogger Peter Giardini did an excellent series on this – read the entire thing!)

3.) Go to a local real estate club meeting (there’s probably one or two more before the year ends!)

4.) Pick your key farm areas for deal hunting

5.) Begin marketing for motivated sellers using cheap or free methods (and yes there are still homes for sale in November/December – I closed on one just this week)

6.) Study your competition (i.e. learn from what other investors in your market are doing)

Depending how much action you’ve taken to date, this list of six may or may not be relevant for you, but you get the idea. There’s nothing magical about the month of January, however you can certainly help make some magic happen towards closing your next deal in January (or even earlier) if you simply make the choice to keep moving forward now instead of waiting.

In fact, don’t even wait for tomorrow. Write down your list of six accomplishments now and just get going! You’ll thank me for this when you’re rockin’ already in January 🙂

Photo: Steve Jurvetson

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.