From studying social media and from talking to other investors of differing levels of experience, I think that we, the property investing community, think of property investing as being a passive activity.
Of course this is true once our property investing is established.
And being passive in property is something many of us aspire to, and something which some of us achieve.
But it takes time and hard work to get to the point where the property investing is established and passive.
In their haste to get to the passive stage I think some, or even many, investors try to create the passive property investing lifestyle too early .
As a result they can miss out on a lot including essential learnings and experience which will help them to be better investors in the future.
I was reminded of an example of this recently, which I think provides a useful epilogue on our thoughts on valuing our buy to let properties.
In a previous video I talked about the ways that we can gather comparables and evidence if we can’t find evidence of sales prices on Rightmove or Zoopla or the other property portals.
But a tool which most or even all successful and established property investors will be able to tap into if they can’t find evidence is “gut feel”.
I’ve heard gut feel described as being the summation of all of your experience and knowledge that is processed and stored at a subconscious level.
And the way that you build that experience and knowledge is by ‘doing’.
I’ve been out viewing properties in an area which is unfamiliar to me in a property investing context.
And I found that there was little sales evidence of values for the first property I viewed.
But I realised that as I viewed more and more properties, I began to get a good feel of how values in this area work , particularly in a relative sense.
It didn’t take long, or that many viewings, before I got a good ‘feel’ of how values work in that location, and roughly how much any particular property is worth.
In other words, the more experience I had, the more accurate my ‘gut feel’ became, and the more confident I became about using it.
Not that I would rely solely on gut feel, it’s not infallible.
But it’s a useful and valid tool which has its place, once we’ve taken the time to develop it.
I realise I’m not describing this very well, so please watch the video where I think it will make more sense .
Anyway, the bottom line is, to get to the point where we can be truly passive, we need to put in the hard work first so that we can work less hard later.
And all of that hard work is not to be despised or avoided, because the experience and knowledge we gain will make us better property investors in the long run.
Here’s to Successful Property Investing.
Peter
Peter Jones
(ex) Chartered Surveyor, author and property investor
https://thepropertyteacher.co.uk
PS. By the way, I’ve rewritten and updated my best-selling e-book, 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:
https://thepropertyteacher.co.uk/the-successful-property-investors-strategy-workshop
