27 Easy Ways To Improve Your Real Estate Business

1. Call some FSBO‘s.
2. Go look at properties for sale.
3. Call your mortgage broker about new financing.
4. Check the renewal dates on your mortgages.
5. Call a friend who could be a JV partner just to catch up. Don’t talk about real estate (yet).
6. Sit down with your Realtor and define exactly what types of properties you want. Know prices, bedrooms, bathrooms, neighborhoods, amenities and transportation down to a very narrow range.
7. Check your records to see which of your tenants pay late on a regular basis. Call them up and see how you can improve the situation. (Online rent payments? Post-dated cheques?
8. Write some offers. Use a good backup clause and just do it.
9. Look at the cash-flow analysis from when you bought it. Compare it to the actual monthly expenses. Use that information to improve your next cash-flow analysis projection. I use different assumptions for repairs and maintenance depending on what reno I have to do and the condition when I buy it.
10. Find out what new rents on similar properties in your area are. You want to be reasonable. Don’t be the cheapest on the block; you’ll attract scum. Don’t be the most expensive, you’ll never keep it full. Be reasonable.
11. Make sure you’re advertising your vacancies on the best rental websites.
12. Go fix something. We call it preventative maintenance.
13. Do your ‘annual’ inspection of a unit. Decide what renovations might payoff with your exit strategy.
14. Run the numbers on a 3-bedroom townhouse (my favorite property).
15. Run the numbers on a four-plex.
16. If you’ve done #14 and #15, return to #8.
17. Take the time to learn more about a topic like commercial real estate investing, RRSP Mortgages,  Joint Ventures, Renovations, Rent to Own or Condo Conversions.
18. Write a story about one of your experiences: tenants, deals, financing, friends, people you’ve helped. Post it on a place like myREINspace or offer it as a guest blog post.
19. Make sure you know your tenants’ birthdays. Send them a $10 Tim Hortons’ gift card on the big day.
20. Make a list of all your properties and rank them from best performing to worst.
21. Try listing the worst performing one for sale. See if you can unload one of your dogs and move on to something better.
22. Go take some good pictures of a property.
23. Learn more about internet marketing.
24. Have some fun. Figure out how much you’d make if prices suddenly went up 30%. What if rents went up 20%?
25. Ask an experienced real estate investor if you can buy them lunch and pick their brains.
26. If you’re an experienced investor, offer your time to some newbies.
27. Remind yourself why you’re going to all this trouble.

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