Real Estate investing could conjure up images of cheques rolling in non-stop while you sleep. The more properties you own the more alluring the profits.
Some investors forget that they need to sow the seeds to ensure future profit crops. Spending money on your properties is a required element, knowing how to balance the necessary from the overspending is the trick.
Here are six reasons it’s important that real estate investors to nurture a healthy relationship with spending money and the people that will help see it spent properly in their property.
- You can beat inflation: There is one other truth that usually holds out, wht you can buy today will more than likely cost more tomorrow. So if a repair or upgrade is necessary to protect the money already invested in your property then better to do it sooner than later.
- Money Well Spent: As long as you are not an impulse spender, or splashing out money for unneeded over the top décor choices, spending money in the right place means you are directing it precisely where it is needed and not allocating to any other area of your life that does not support your property investment’s stability. You get what you pay for.
- You may experience a better quality of life: Whether for your own home or the home your tenants call home, they both need attention and care. What kind of price can you place on living in a better neighborhood or securing a long term tenant. Painting a room just the right colour to change your mood, updating to a laminate floor for easier care when you own a furry friend easier or updating the central hub of the home – with a well thought out kitchen?
- Choosing to help the economy exactly where you want to: As an investor you are part of the overall economy in any community you choose to invest and be part of. Consumer spending comprises about 70% of GDP. People spent their money so that you could obtain it. Your expenditures today, although profitable for you in the long run, actually also afford someone in the community an improved qualify of life, not to mention the goodwill with your tenant. Now that’s a doubly good feeling!
- You can actually buy time: I have been called cheap, although I prefer frugal, but when it comes to how I invest MY time, well then the cost:reward equation becomes an even more serious endeavour. I’m sure most home owners could also take on many of the little jobs around an investment property yourself, but what is this task costing you beyond just the gas and supplies? What else could you have used that time for? Who could you have spent time with? What could you have learned? Could you have made more money elsewhere? There is a time to let others take over these tasks for a more meaningful life.
- Spending is just more fun: You, like me, may have a partner, friend or relative that has demonstrated this belief and skill many times over with zest. Overspending is never the goal, but at some point in life you have reach a state of financial freedom and money and your future security no longer carries the same worry it did when you were 20. Now may be the time you reflect “What am I doing all of this for?” and “If not now, when?” Just as practical items like a good mattress improves your sleep and health, so to can practical property management partnership and well planned investments into your property can enhance state of mind by eliminating the worry, freeing you for more pleasurable activities. You deserve it.
Ideally, with each successive year of your life, you will actually spend more, not less. It’s a responsible approach — as long as your income rises at the same or greater rate.
Delayed gratification may matter when you’re younger, but how long will you defer your best life? Let’s all pledge to ‘pay ourselves first’! If you have entered the real estate investor arena you likely will not have to delay as much gratification as others when you decide that well-directed spending is truly the best way to the finish line. Remember “Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.” [Ben Franklin]
