Planning The Adventure

(So this post is a little later than I was hoping to get it in hear. It is in fact my second attempt at this blog post, the first one failing because I didn't realize that I couldn't insert tables into my post. So I had to rewrite it. The advantage being I had to reevaluate some of the content. Mind you I'm still not a writer but it's better than it was).

In my first blog I declared a statement of intent and followed that through with a few ideas on how I planed to follow through. Well following that I decided for my second blog post I should put down my plan of attack. Also known as a business plan. However because I like to consider myself a gamer, and in addition to the title of these blogs. I decided to break from a traditional business plan layout, and go for something that speaks more to my inner gamer. So with that in mind I instead created a real estate tabletop character sheet. The structure will be somewhat recognizable to those of you that are familiar with games like Fate Core, Shadowrun, and World of Darkness. And so, with that we begin.

So in gaming the first items to develop in the character sheet is the character description. This part of the sheet is similar to a business intro/overview because in both cases it describes the core characteristics and principles of the character or in our case the business. We accomplish this by declaring the philosophy's or values (aspects 1-3) of the character/business. We then follow this up by defining the business's underlying drive or mission statement. Then finally we explain the motivations and/or goals of the business.

Company Name:

Brownie Real Estate (Think Celtic folklore, not cookies)

Philosophy Point (Aspect) 1:

Perfection is the only Impossibility

Philosophy Point (Aspect) 2:

Honesty is key

Philosophy Point (Aspect) 3:

(Still working on this)

Mission Statement:

(Still a work in progress)

Personal Goals:

• Pay off car
• Pay off student loans
• buy my own house free and clear
• develop a $1,000,000.00 a year in passive income. (If I'm going to dream I might as well dream big, right).

Professional Goals:

• Save $5,000.00
• Acquire a real estate license
• Buy raw land property(s)
• Sell and/or upgrade raw land property(s)

Shared Goals

• Build a Super/Giga Farm
• Build a L.A.R.P village/farmer's market
• Build a Micro Brewery and Distillery
• build a Server Farm for Web Hosting
• build an Online Gaming Company.

Now we move onto Stats and Skills. Now any one that's ever played a RPG (Roll Playing Game) be it tabletop or video. They know that the Stats and Skills build the foundations for what your character or business can and can not do. Thus we begin with education. Look at education like you would your based stats, strength, dexterity, constitution, wisdom, and charisma that sort of thing. These stats in game open up the doors for your skills. Much like what education dose for business. With that I decided to classified some of the Biggerpockets.com resources into a structure that makes since to me from both a gaming and an academic perspective.

Education

• Biggerpockets.com Podcast (Lectures)
• Biggerpockets.com Blogs (Home Work)
• Biggerpockets.com Reading Lists
• Biggerpockets.com Forums (Discussion)
• Weekly Deal Challenge (Analyzing Deals) (Probably more like biweekly or monthly lets not be to ambitious, yet).

The next section of the skill will be target Markets. In gaming these are the skill that I would classify as the utility skills like Lore or knowledge arcane for any D&D or Pathfinder fans out there. These are the skills that tend to define your strategies and proficiency. For our purposes these would be the skills that define were we'll find our products.

• *_Auction
• Preforeclosure
• *_Foreclosure
• Probate
• *_MLS
• Distressed Owner/Seller
• *_Wholesale Purchase
• Retail Purchase
• Absentee Owner/Seller
• *_ROI
• Driving for dollars

Our next skill set is our real estate nitch section. This is kind of what you use to decide your primary real estate strategies. I don't have a good comparison for this on the skill list, the best comparison that I can think of for a comparison would be a Characters Class and/or Prestige Class.

• *_Raw Land Flipping
• *_Raw Land Upgrades
• *_House Flipping
• Buy and hold Single Family
• *_Buy and hold Multifamily
• Spec Building
• *_Whole/Retail Real Estate
• Commercial Real Estate Flipping
• Buy and Hold Commercial Real Estate
• Spec Build Commercial Real Estate
• Modeler Home
• Mobile Homes
• Mobile Home Parks
• Storage
• Sub Development
• Whole/Retail commercial
• Tax Liens
• Notes

So now we come to our Marketing strategies which compare well with the social skills youed find on most character sheets. Skills like Gather Information, Diplomacy, and rapport. We use these strategies to generate our lead lists for purchasing inventory and closing deals.

• *_Networking
• *_Real Estate Web Page
• *_SEO
• *_Direct Mail
• *_NLP
• Signage
• Driving for Dollars
• Cold Calls

The next Section that we have are the financial strategies. Unfortunately much like the nitch strategies, and so I don't really have any comparisons for these.

• *_Cash Down
• *_Peer-to-Peer/Crowed Funding
• *_Seller Financing
• Subject-to
• Sort sales
• Hard Money Loans
• *_Portfolio Loans
• Mortgage loans
• *_Equity Loans
• Private Loans
• B.O.M. (Bank of Mom/Family/Friends)

Hear we have Exit Strategies. These are much like the create item skills you'd find in most RPG's these are the skills that when all is said and done they make money.

• *_Sell Retail
• *_Sell Wholesale
• *_Leas Option/Rent to Own
• *_Hold and Rent
• *_Upgrade the property

Next up are expansion strategies. When I think about expansion strategies I keep coming back to the idea that these are a lot like a characters feats. In gaming feats are ability's that you only gain after your character reaches specific levels. Now the cool things about feats is that, for the most part, their automatic and they let your character do some really neat stuff, like clear a room with a single swing of say the cleave feat from D&D. Now were the comparison comes in, is when say you were sending out about 100 yellow letters a month, and then you had to followup and close on those deals. Now, you've developed your in-house marketing team, and have a team/individual whose only job is to send out mail and answer the phone. Since their not taking any time to close on those deals they can send out more mail, and now since you personally are not sending out any mail you now have the time to close on all of those extra deals.

• *_Develop in-house marketing team
• *_Develop in-house Answering Service
• *_Develop in_house Sales/Closing Team
• *_Develop in_house Contractors Team
• *_Develop in-house Property Management Team
• *_Develop in-house Research Team

Lastly we have the Miscellaneous items. These equate well to the skills in a character sheet that you only take once like Languages. These are the necessary things to have that only work in specific situation, and their amazing to have in those situations. Of course out side of those situations you can't do a whole lot with them, but all the same they open a lot of doors and pave the way for many a possibility.

• *_Declare a Real Estate Business legal Structure
• *_Higher a Real Estate Attorney
• *_Higher a Real Estate CPA (Tax Guy/Girl)
• *_Acquire a Real License
• *_Acquire A Contractors License
• *_Acquire A Real Estate Brokers License

So now that you know my basic mindset lets move on to the last part of this post:

The Rules

• First and Foremost as you read through this post you may have noticed asterisk next to some of the strategies. The reason for this is that because there are so many possibility's the asterisk represent the strategies that I plan to focus on at first. So when working through the list choose no less then three and no more than five strategies per section to focus on. (Yes I know I don't follow this rule to a tee but no rule is set in stone.
• Secondly, to gain a point/level in any skill/stat you must have written 10 blogs, seriously participated in 10 forum discussions related to the subject (that means more than one passing comment), or some combination their of. Now as there are 10 levels per skill/stat and you must participate in at least 10 discussions to gain a level. To gain all 10 levels/points you must have participated in at least 100 discussions on the subject.
• This will of course in no way make one an expert on the subject, but it is hoped that one can at least develop a firm foundation and grounding in the subject matter.
• If you decide to actually play a game with this character sheet, say like an evolved form of the ChashFlow game, I would suggest you use the Fate Core or Gate Accelerated rule sets. I will not go into further explanation hear because Biggerpockets.com is not a gaming forum. If someone is interested in trying this in a tabletop setting, shoot me an email and I will be more than happy to explain further.

Please feel free to use this form to help you develop your own business plan, and let me know how well this structure works out for you.

*****

(Disclaimer:

Although I appear to make light of Real Estate do not misunderstand. Real Estate Investing IS NOT A GAME. Their are real people, real money, and above all real CONSEQUENCES when dealing with real estate in any of its many forms. I am structuring my temporary business plan as a character sheet from a game because I understand and enjoy game mechanics, and this is an attempt to keep myself involved and improving in the real estate world. If this also helps you and/or others to get involved and improve grate, but at the end of the day never treat real estate as if it were a game because it is not).

*****

(Vorlons)

“Who Are You”

(Shadows)

“What Do You Want”

(Words of wisdom. Babylon 5)