4 Easy Tips for Fall Home Staging
By Christina El Moussa
I love talking to new house flippers about the real estate investing business. Whether we’re teaching a seminar for Success Path Education or talking with people at a real estate networking event, Tarek and I get the chance to meet so many different people with so many interesting goals for their real estate businesses.
After talking with some students at one of our seminars recently, I got to thinking about financial freedom and how it doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. For Tarek and me, it’s the ability to spend time with our kids while living a comfortable lifestyle, without worrying about the future. For some people, it’s being able to take off on vacation whenever they want. For others, it’s owning a private jet.
As I thought about this, I thought a lot about our goals for our real estate business and how they’ve shaped our strategies and the way we’ve shaped our house flipping business. Because we’re both very family-oriented and we prefer hands-on work to working in an office, real estate has always made sense to both me and Tarek. Because we know how much money we’ll need to live comfortably now and in our retirement, we know the scope of work that we need to do to achieve our goals. After all, we’d have to have a very different business plan if we were trying to become billionaires.
Your goals will play a huge part in your business and how you run it, so, it’s important to have a very deep understanding of those goals. Instead of just saying, “I want financial freedom,” you need to be able to define what that means to you. So how do you do that?
Identify Your Needs and Wants
First, sit down with a pen and paper. Write down all of the things that you need for a comfortable life. Then write down as many things as you can think of that you want but don’t necessarily need. Once you’ve finished these two lists, rank your wants. You might want a private jet, but you probably want a nicer car or a bigger house first.
Once you have your wants ranked, you can start to look at them as goals. Consider which ones you think are realistic, which ones you feel like you almost need to feel comfortable and happy, and which ones would be nice but aren’t as important to you.
Figure Out How Much It’ll Cost
Looking at your needs and wants, do a little bit of research and find out how much it would cost to live a more luxurious lifestyle. Compare the costs of several different lifestyles, including everything from living as you do now but with a nicer car and a larger house to living the ultimate dream with the summer home in Sicily and a private jet to get you there.
How Much Do You Want to Work?
Now, consider how many hours per week you want to work and how much more you’d be willing to work to achieve different goals and lifestyles. The beautiful thing about the real estate business is you don’t have to work 40 hours a week in an office to become financially independent, but you should have an idea of how much you’d be willing to work for a certain lifestyle.
With this information, you should have a better idea of your definition of financial freedom. Get as specific as you can so that you can visualize your goals and take the right steps to grow your real estate business and reach all of your goals. Good luck!
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