3 New Ways to Find Great Contractors
By Tarek El Moussa
For most people, the hardest part of starting a real estate investing business and heading down the road to financial freedom is taking the first big step and quitting their day jobs. You’ve never really wanted to work in an office for someone else, and you’ve always wanted to be your own boss – but actually taking the plunge can be really intimidating! Fortunately, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this process and helping new real estate investors get through it. As a result, I’ve come up with a few simple steps that can help anyone get out of living the 9:00-to-5:00 lifestyle.
Start Flipping Before You Quit Your Job
First, you don’t have to switch directly from working full-time to flipping houses full-time. Instead, you can start flipping part-time while you’re still working. That’ll build up your income and help you stash some cash for the transition. And you’ll have experience with your new house flipping career before you dive in head-first.
Create a New Budget
Next, if you’ve been working at the same job for a while, you’re probably pretty used to your current income level. You’re used to getting consistent paychecks every two weeks no matter what you do, and you’re used to being able to afford to buy certain things, dine out with family and friends, etc.
Well, once you get your house flipping career established, you’ll be able to afford all that and more. However, as you get started, there might be times when things get a little tight. So, while you build your savings and diversify your investment portfolio so that you can keep growing your wealth through real estate and other investments, you might want to create a temporary budget that’s just a little bit stricter than your budget when you had an office job.
Get Into a Routine
If you do these two things, you’ll basically be ready to leave your office job whenever you feel comfortable taking the leap. Don’t wait forever because the timing will never be perfect, but do some math and find out what kind of lifestyle you can afford with your current rate of flipping houses versus what you could afford if you were doing it full-time.
So, after you put in your two weeks’ notice, and you finish your last day of work, you might be tempted to take a mini-vacation before jumping into the real estate business. There’s really nothing wrong with taking a little bit of time off, but make sure that you don’t extend your vacation too long. Set a date when you’ll start “work” on your real estate business in earnest and stick to it.
Then, when you start, you’ll want to establish a daily, weekly, and monthly routine. Pretend that you’re starting a new job, but instead of answering to someone else, you’re the boss (which is true). Set a regular time when you’ll get up each morning, and times when you’ll search the MLS for leads, go driving for dollars, follow up with motivated sellers, etc. The more structured your time is, the less likely you’ll be to slack off and neglect your responsibilities for your house flipping business.
These steps may seem simple, but they’re surprisingly effective. Follow them and you’ll be on your way to saying goodbye to the 9:00-to-5:00 world forever as you start your house flipping business and quickly work your way to financial freedom. You might not have a guaranteed paycheck every two weeks, but you’ll almost definitely have better income and a ton more freedom to spend your time the way you want to.
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