Hi, Peter Jones, chartered surveyor, author and property investor and in this series of videos we are going through the twelve questions which I think every property investor should ask themselves firstly when they start out on their property journey and regularly as they go through their property journey, just to make sure they are still doing the right things in the right way at the right times.
And the third question that I think everybody beginning to invest in property needs to ask themselves is “How much time do I have to put into my property business?” Now this is obviously quite crucial because behind the question is the implication we are going to be taking action and I need to have the time to take the right sort of actions which are going to help us to build our property business.
So if you are starting, part time, for example, and I meet a lot of investors who tell me they have very little time. I understand that and particularly if you’ve got a full-time job, particularly if it’s a demanding full-time job, you might not have much time to put into property. So I would suggest that the starting point is to think about how you’re currently spending your time. Is there any time which you could call wasted time? Are you watching too much telly? Are you spending your time on facebook? Instead of going on facebook or watching telly could you instead be on Rightmove, could you be ringing agents and making appointments? What do you do at the weekend? Could you stop doing whatever it is you’re doing at the weekend and just allow yourself just a couple of hours to make appointments to go and view properties? And the reality is that when you think about it, most people, even those who feel they don’t have very much time could probably make more time to do that kind of stuff.
Now if you’re really stuck for time an answer could be outsourcing some of this stuff. So, for example, rather than going onto Rightmove yourself and looking for deals, maybe at some point you could actually outsource that to a VA who could go through Rightmove and make all of your appointments for you for example. Or maybe, if you are really stuck for time, maybe you could team up with a JV partner or an agent or a deal packager or sourcer who could go and inspect the properties and find properties for you. There is usually a way around the time conundrum if you really feel that you don’t have a lot of time.
So that would be the key thing; see how much time you’ve got, make sure that you have enough time to be able to do the things that you need to do. Now again this is one of those questions which is ultimately going to affect us when we think about what strategy we are going to be undertaking. We were thinking in the last question “What’s the best strategy to help me achieve what I want to achieve?” If you don’t have very much time then you maybe have to adopt a strategy which is a lot more passive so for example; instead of taking on flips and overseeing project managing refurbs for example, maybe it is a matter of buying a simple buy to let and letting it out. I don’t know, but have a think about it in sort of the global, think about what you are trying to achieve, think about what the best strategy is to achieve that and then think about how much time you need for that strategy and how much time you’ve actually got. But the key thing is that most people, when I talk to them about time, even those who tell me they don’t have very much time, usually have much more time than they think they have if they just re-arranged their time.
Here’s to successful property investing
Peter Jones B.Sc FRICS
Chartered Surveyor, author and property investor
thepropertyteacher.co.uk
PS by the way, I’ve rewritten and updated my best-selling eBook, The Successful Property Investor’s Strategy Workshop, which is an account of how I put together my multi-property portfolio, starting from scratch and with no money of my own, and how you can do the same. For more details please go to
thepropertyteacher.co.uk/the-successful-property-investors-strategy-workshop
