the-abcs-of-real-estate-investing-ken LifeFeeling

specifically, and start there. You may have to work your way outward or to other
submarkets if there is nothing in your first-choice market.
The more established you become in this business and the more people you tell about
your goal, the more opportunities will come your way. At least they will appear as
opportunities; many of them are distractions cloaked as opportunities. As tempted as you
will be to jump on a plane and fly from California to Florida or from Virginia to Texas
when you see what looks or sounds like a great deal, stay focused and resolute on your goal.
It’s too overwhelming to try to consider everything at once.
Becoming an Expert
You need to become an expert in the submarket you select and a good deal of that
learning happens during the market evaluation phase. But it also happens as you are
evaluating properties. Adopt the mind-set that learning is ongoing and forever. You never
know enough about a market and the market is constantly changing. I look at everything
around me in terms of real estate. Call it a sickness, but every story I read in the paper,
every conversation I have, every retail center I see, every stoplight erected on a street
corner, every new employer or employer expansion has real estate implications to me. I see
them everywhere. My eye is trained. But if your senses are not as honed as mine, here are
some guidelines to help to achieve expert status:
USE YOUR RESEARCH
The research you have done in preparation for property investment should be organized
and usable. I have market and property information organized so that I can refer to it at any
time. Just because I’m in the property-targeting stage doesn’t mean that I stop looking at my
research. The work that you did before should become your bible. Scan it more intensely
now that you’ve chosen your market more specifically.
The research that you did months ago should be continually updated. Real estate is a
fast-moving business, so I do research all the time. Anything that I see that pertains to my
target markets I catalogue and keep. Anything that pertains to markets I’m not currently
targeting I catalogue and track. You just never know when a sleepy community like
Litchfield Park, Arizona, will pop onto the radar and become a boomtown, unless you track
it! Then, you’ll see it coming often before anyone else.
READ EVERYTHING
I read every article I can get my hands on in our target markets. Sure I glance at the
property listings, but more important, I look at the news, the sports, the neighborhood
happenings. That’s where I get a real picture of the market. For example, I look for any big
events that relate to the area. Take, for instance, the school district passing a bond initiative
to build another elementary school. That’s the kind of news that will draw people to a
community. Similarly, things like new retail centers, rezoning of a land parcel, declarations
of historic landmarks, crime reports, all have real estate implications. So do feature stories
that rank communities with the wealthiest zip codes, that have the lowest crime, and that
have the best school test scores. Even the morning traffic reports tell you something about a
market and its desirability.