Getting Started with theEnd in Mind

Mike: Welcome back to the flipnerd.com REI Classroom, where experts from across the real estate investing industry teach you quick lessons to take your business to the next level. And now, let’s meet today’s expert host.

Gene: Hello, this is Gene. I’m the founder of the Residential Assisted Living Academy and I’m your host today for the REI Classroom. And today, what I am going to be talking about is getting started with the end in mind.

Mike: This REI Classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by uglyopportunities.com.

Gene: I know a lot of you have been doing real estate or thinking about doing real estate, and I think it is really critically important to understand where you’re going before you even get started. I do residential assisted living, and when I first got started in real estate, I was 18 years old with my first property. No money down, I had no clue what I was doing. I had no money, no credit, I didn’t know what I was doing. But I made it through the process. And then at that point, I realized the concept of buying and holding I could make residual income and that was great. And then fix and flip, I could make a big chunk of money and that was great. But here I am 30, 40 years later and I’m at a whole different point in my life where it’s kind of like I am looking at things differently, and I’m saying, “What am I really doing this for?”

So when you’re getting started, I think you really need to understand what the end goal is. So for me, I do residential assisted living. At some point, I realized the concept of residual income is what I was most interested in because every time I did a fix and flip, I’ve got to tell you it was a lot of fun, and I loved finding that property in the rough and shining it up and making it beautiful and then selling to somebody else. But then I was unemployed. I had to go find another one and go do it all over again.

And it was kind of like you’re dating somebody and you break up, dating somebody and you break up. It’s kind of fun, but then bad, and fun, and then bad, and I just didn’t want that. So then I moved into the buy and hold. And when I did the buy and hold, just like a lot of people today, and I talk to thousands of people all over the country, they’re still doing buy and holds with single-family homes or apartment complexes where they’re making $100 or $200 a month positive cash flow after all expenses.

Now that’s great if you own 100 units, 200 units. But if you just own one or two or five or 10, it’s really difficult to get to where you really want to be. So when we talk about the concept of getting started with the end in mind, if your goal is to have, well, I want significant residual income, then just back it up today. What can I do right now that’s going to produce that significant residual income? So you’ve got to start with a number in mind. If you had $10,000 a month in net revenue coming in each month, could you get by? Is that enough? Is that your goal? Now your goal might be half that, it could be five times that, but it’s got to be your end in mind, not mine.

So take the time to figure it out where you’re going and why are you doing it? Because if you don’t have a why that’s strong enough, you are not going to get committed to do everything that it takes. So let’s assume for a minute your goal is to create $10,000 or more in significant residual income, where you don’t have to work 40, 60, 80 hours a week. You might put in five or 10 hours a week, but not full time, not double time, something where you’ve got significant income and it doesn’t take a lot of your time. So if that’s your goal, when you back it up, what are your choices when it comes to real estate?

Well, I know what I have done, and I know what other people do. Your choices are single-family homes, apartment complexes, storage units, you could do mobile home parks. You could do individual notes. But the one that I’ve landed on is the residential assisted living because it really checks my boxes. It gives me something more than just that significant residual income. It is real estate related, no doubt, and that is what this is all about, when we talk about Flipnerds and what we are doing in the REI Classroom right here. But it’s not just real estate. Real estate is just the vehicle that the business is housed in. The residential assisted living is that business itself. And what I love about the business is I can make a lot of money, but I can help a lot of people.

We have a motto at Resident Assisted Living Academy, it’s “Do good and do well.” The ability to do something for others that is significant, that is lasting, that is a legacy that goes beyond where you are today and your income and your needs, and you can do really well. You can make a lot of money. And there is nothing wrong with making a lot of money and doing something good, and that’s what I love about significant residual income.

And that’s what I love about residential assisted living. It gives me the real estate component, it gives me the residual income, significant residual income, and the ability to do good and do well. So start with your end in mind. Where do you want to go? If you want income, maybe consider residential assisted living. That’s all I do and it’s what you should consider too. But if you’re looking for the fix and flip or the quick buck, that’s fine too.

But also keep in mind, and I’ve shared this before, you can get that home up and running, that assisted living facility in that residential setting and sell the business for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have students all over the country that are looking to buy these businesses. I teach them how to create them. But they’re willing to buy them for hundreds of thousands of dollars and they can’t even find them. So if you do like to fix and flip, we can do that too. Residential assisted living really can check all of your boxes. So stay tuned for more. We’ll be coming back to the REI Classroom. I’m glad you’re here. This is Gene, the Founder of the Residential Assisted Living Academy.

Mike: HomeVestors, the “We Buy Ugly Houses” folks, is a franchised system of hundreds of real estate investors that have purchased over 65,000 houses. If you’d like to learn more about the most powerful real estate investing system in existence, whether you’re a pro looking to take your business to the next level or whether you have no experience at all, but a burning passion to be successful in real estate investing, please visit FlipNerd.com/ugly to learn more.

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