What To Do After Investing In Your First Property

When you set your mind to real estate investment, there’s usually a long journey to undertake. Between where you are now, and the thriving portfolio you’re dreaming of in the future, you’ve got a lot of saving up, borrowing, and short term investing to do. 

But the day will come when that finally pays off, and you’ll be standing there with the keys to your very first investment property. Congratulations!

However, now all the prep work has been done, and you’re faced with the reality of being a property owner, what are you supposed to do next? Because a lot of first-time investors can get stuck here, and start ‘umming and ahhing’ over how to make the best use of their new real estate. 

Let’s get you unstuck. Here are the next steps you’ll want to focus on now that you’ve got an investment property under your belt. 

Beginner Steps

These are the things every newbie real estate investor should do once they’ve actually got a property on their portfolio. 

Before we get into any of the specific plans you can make, these beginner steps will be key to setting off on the right foot. 

Double check your original investment goals

You probably went into real estate investing with a goal in mind, and it’s usually one of two things:

• Buying property you can rent out, hopefully to more than one person
• Buying property you can flip, make more valuable, and then sell on again

But now you’ve got a real property to take care of, it’s time to revisit these goals and see if they’re suitable for the property you’ve opted for. 

Because it might just turn out that the property in question isn’t big enough for more than one person to live in, or is too expensive to flip at this point in time. 

Double check your finances

Speaking of expenses, you should also double check your budget as it currently stands. Whether or not you came in at the price you were hoping for, you need to be sure the funds you’re relying on are still usable now you’ve got a property on your books. 

For example, if you bought a property at auction and paid under your budget for it, you’re now going to be sitting on a cash pile that’s larger than you planned it to be. Great! 

However, once you’ve had a survey done, it’s highlighted some structural problems that could cost tens of thousands to fix. And on top of that, you might be holding onto this property for a while longer than you planned. 

Either way, your goals might need to change on the fly. You just can’t afford to stick to them right now. 

Conduct some light maintenance

Features that need a bit of repair or a new coat of paint should be given the work they need before you do anything else. 

Both would-be tenants and buyers aren’t going to be interested in a property that clearly needs a touch of TLC, and it’s up to you to square that away before you re-enter the market from the other side. 

Get high quality photos taken

And finally, no matter your plans for the property, you need to capture some good images of what you’ve got on offer. Hire a real estate photographer to do this for you, as they have the best eye for the job. 

They also tend to have much better cameras, lenses, and editing skills, so you’ll want one on your side now you’re ready to make a profit off of your property. 

If You Want to Let

This is what the majority of first-time property investors opt for, and it’s a popular route for many reasons. 

Once you become a landlord, you can gain recurring ROI on your original investment. You don’t just have to aim for the one lump sum from selling up and moving on, only to reinvest your money and start the process all over again. It’s right for some, but it might not be right for you! 

As such, if you want to let the property and start renting it out, now’s the perfect time to get involved with these two things.

Think about getting a property manager

Yes, landlords can be hands-off! If you want someone to take care of the property when you’ve got tenants in it, you can hire a property manager to do the job for you. 

Decide what you want in a tenant

If you don’t know what tenant you’re after, it’ll be hard to market your investment in any particular way. And when you can’t pick a direction, you’re more likely to sit with an empty property. 

If You Want to Sell

It’s always an option, if you want your ROI sooner rather than later. And when you have a bigger starting fund, you are more primarily placed to buy to sell, rather than buy to let. 

So, if you’ve got a house you want to send straight back to the market, here’s what you need to do before you contact an estate agent. 

Up the value

Could you renovate, remodel, extend, etc? A little more hardy investment now means better ROI when selling.

Keep an eye on market conditions

You don’t want to sell when the market is down, so watch how it fluctuates. 

Get Your First Property Investment Working for You

When you get your hands on a property – and it’s not one you plan to live in yourself – you need to pivot as hard as possible into making that property work for you. Otherwise it’s just going to be a massive drain on your finances. 

You don’t need to work out the next steps ASAP, but you do need to come up with a plan as a priority. So start with double checking your current position, whether or not your goals are still relevant, and then move into the starter steps for either renting or selling, as listed above.