How to Find Your Niche in the Real Estate Market
By now, you’ve listened to the podcasts, read all of the articles, and surrounded yourself with real estate professionals who can help you, but that isn’t enough. How can you truly find your niche in real estate? For many, it can be intimidating because there are so many: you can flip houses or you can buy houses for rentals. But what kind of houses do you want to buy? Wholesaling? Tax sales? Multifamily homes? Homes you can convert? It’s difficult to figure out where you will do the best.
Let’s take a bit of a trip to get there:
What Would Make You Happiest?
Some people dream about getting their hands dirty and working on older houses that need to be rehabbed back to glory. Other people dream about meeting people from all over the world who come to rent from you. Some people just care about the money and don’t really have a passion for it – and there’s no shame in that!
Wherever your heart falls, that’s where you should go.
Think about sanding floors or stripping paint off of walls, that’s a lot of physical and manual labor. Does that excite you? If it does, you might be better for rehabbing or flipping homes. If you’d prefer to hire a contractor to make everything simple, perhaps buying a rental home works better for you.
Now think about having to evict someone or take them to court over damages – some people don’t have the stomach for that. If you are one of those people, maybe you don’t want to rent.
Think about what will make you content and go from there. Your real estate happiness and success is dependent on it.
Gut Instincts Can Be Right
Sometimes we think too much about something and our brain doesn’t lead us in the right direction. Start with simple questions:
Can I tolerate all of the work that goes into rehabbing houses?
Would I feel better buying houses at a lower price than at a regular price?
Do I have someone I can turn to for things like electrical work?
Am I prepared to be a landlord?
All of those questions get a simple “yes” or a simple “no” answer. That’s it. Don’t overthink it don’t add any “but…” statements in your head. If you need to, take some time before you answer.
Even though it doesn’t give you a pathway to success, it can help you weed out some of the options that the first step didn’t.
Don’t Be Afraid to Fail
So many people don’t take the jump into the real estate market because they are afraid to fail – don’t be that person. If you don’t do anything at all, you’ve already failed. When you are trying something new, you are going to make mistakes, you just are. Instead of making a mistake and then quitting, you should make the mistake and learn from it. Sometimes you get your best lessons out of failure.
When you are starting out, failures can only make you better.
Don’t Let Money Be Your Guiding Light
Too many people put off starting their real estate journey until they “find the money” to get started. Money doesn’t have to be the driving force behind your decision. You can find yourself a partner, if you think that will work for you. Think of crafty ways to save money on rehab supplies or paints – there are many online resources that can help you there.
Or, start making purchases now for things you know you will need – a good set of tools, courses that may be required to be a landlord, or buy discounted carpeting that you can put down yourself.
Do whatever it is you can to find your niche in the real estate market so that you can have success and stay happy.