Secrets to Real Estate Investing While Having a Full Time Job

In This Article

I started investing in buy and hold rental properties while having a full time job, just like many other investors.  If you’ve listened to the Bigger Pockets Podcasts, there are quite a number of successful investors who have done just that:

• Arthur Garcia, a buy and hold investor out of Southern California
• James Vermillion, who does flips and rentals while working for the US Military
• Sam Craven, who closed 27 deals in his first year while working full time
• Michael Woodward, who works full time AND flips houses
• Josh Sterling, who amassed 50 units (and counting)

So, what do all of these successful investors, plus the thousands of others around the country have in common?  What are all the big secrets to real estate investing while holding down a full time job?

(Hey! Sorry for the interruption – but we didn’t want you to miss this week’s FREE webinar “How to Invest in Real Estate While Working a Full Time Job!“ Thousands have already saved their spot to learn how to invest while working a 9-5. Click HERE to learn more. Enjoy the rest of the article 🙂 )

Where does someone find the time?

1. Dedication

Someone who is dedicated to achieving their goal will not let anything get in their way.  Just because you work a full time job doesn’t mean that there aren’t more hours in the day to call leads, write a business plan, attend networking events, ask questions on the Bigger Pockets forums, find a mentor, locate a portfolio lender, visit properties, etc.  Dedicated investors may use some company-approved vacation time to do the above activities that require business hours to complete.  Or they may use their lunch hour.  Or get up early.

You can see where I’m going.  When I started investing, I knew what my goal was and I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy street.  No one was going to hand me a completely finished real estate investing business on a silver platter wrapped up with a little bow.  There were days where I had to work nights and weekends to make it happen.  But looking back, all the dedication and time paid off.

2.  Persistence

Real estate investors need to have persistence.  If you’re dedicated to your goal, you want to be persistent to tough it out during the times that things don’t go your way.  If you’re a buy and hold investor, that may mean that a property that goes on the market in the morning may have an accepted offer on it by 5 pm when you get out of work and are able to see it.  Keep pushing through the obstacles and persist on to make it to your dream.  Just remember, though, that when you are at your full-time job, you owe your employer 100% of your time and effort.

3.  Systems and organization

If you are working a full time job, you are dedicating a large portion of your week to that.  As such, that limits the amount of time you have to devote to your real estate investing.  This means that you have to organize and systematize as much of the available time you do have to take full advantage of it.  If you’re not organized, you’re going to spend unnecessary time locating things such as phone numbers, paperwork, task lists, etc.  If you don’t spend time establishing systems, you’re going to be “re-inventing the wheel” each time you take on a new project.   The more time you spend on unnecessary activities limits your ability to do more projects.

And my #1 favorite secret of investing while having a full time job:

If you pay people, they will do things for you.  (Tweet This!)

This statement is just mind blowing because it’s absolutely true.  Would your time be better served on the weekends spending several hours staging a house, or would you rather hire someone to do that while you use the time to find a flip deal that will ultimately net you $30,000?    Would you rather spend time doing some data analysis or hire a VA (virtual assistant) who can do the boring tedious work while you negotiate the purchase price of a buy and hold property down by $5,000?

So there you go … several secrets to real estate investing while having a full time job — no guru course needed.

(Ready to learn more about investing while working a 9-5? Join this week’s FREE webinar “How to Invest in Real Estate While Working a Full Time Job!”  Click HERE to join!

“The distance between dreams and reality is called action.”)

 

What secrets would you like to share?

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