The 3 ‘Big Rocks’ of Property Investment Success

by Positive Real Estate | Mar 26, 2021

What are your Big Rocks this year? What are your Big Rocks for your property investing journey?

If you’re scratching your head and wondering if you’ve accidentally stumbled across a blog for construction workers, bear with me.

Big Rocks is a concept often used in business or life coaching to essentially describe your priorities. The theory is, if you don’t have clear priorities, or if you have too many, chances are you’ll let smaller issues distract you and ultimately fail in your goals.

By assigning Big Rocks, or priorities, you’re focusing your energy on specific outcomes. Make sense?

It works for property investment too. There are some Big Rocks that you need to have, cultivate and nurture to reach the desired outcome of passive income and the life you desire. Lose sight of one of those Big Rocks and the outcome is jeopardised.

So, what are the Big Rocks of property investment success?

INCOME

Being a successful property investor is at least 50 per cent reliant on your income. Without an income, you can’t borrow money, or at least have limited borrowing ability. The higher, and more stable, your income, the more you will be able to borrow. What then follows is lower interest rates, and a high loan to value ratio. The better your income the more choice of lenders you have, so more competitive rates and terms become available. Taking time to do some extra training to ensure a promotion or pay rise, shopping around your industry to make sure you’re earning as much as your counterparts, or negotiating a contract over a casual or freelance arrangement, can all help increase and stabilise your income from a lender’s perspective. Look after your income, and it will look after you and your investment plan.

TIME

Get this into your DNA – you have to give property investment time. And we’re not talking about weeks or months or even a few years. We mean 10, 15 or 20 years of time to let your properties do their thing in terms of capital growth and rent rate increases. Property investing success is born out of a buy and hold strategy and it takes TIME! If you’re buying properties, doing quick renovations and flipping them, that’s a different ball game. If your aim is to have a booming portfolio that generates enough cash flow to supplement or replace your current income, then you have to invest the time it takes to build up that kind of business.

SELF-BELIEF

As soon as you start to tell people you’re going to invest in property you’ll notice that pretty much everyone you know has an opinion on it. While many of these people will be family and friends, most of whom will be well-meaning with your best interests at heart, the fact is that 99.9 per cent of their advice will be based on absolutely nothing.

Unless they are successful property investors themselves, their chatter will be based on nothing more than their own opinion, and much of it will be negative. ‘It’s too risky, the market is too unstable, I knew a guy who lost his life savings….’ – you get the gist. Smile, nod and say thanks very much, but ensure you’re getting your information on the market, lenders, interest rates and everything else investor-related from people who have the knowledge and expertise. That way you will go into each investment with the self-belief that you’re making the right decisions and believe in your own strategy and plan.

Self-doubt will stop you from seeing opportunities when they arise. Get educated and informed so that you can keep your self-belief where it needs to be.