The First Weekend

Buying an investment property can be a lot of fun. After all, this is not only a great way to spend your time, but it can earn you some money as well. But before you start your search for tenants, you are going to have to get your property up to par. When it comes down to it, the real estate market is quite competitive. To beat out the competition you need to make sure that your property has more to offer than the rest.

To get started moving in the right direction, you need to use the first weekend in the home to your advantage. Remember, the more time that you waste, the more time it is going to take for you to see a profit. And since you have another job to tend to during the week, the weekends are when you need to make your hay. Unfortunately, many investors slack off during this time, and find that they are way behind schedule.

There are many things that you can do the first weekend in a new investment property. Once you have a plan in hand, which you should have put together on day one, you will be ready to go.
Arrive at the home early Saturday morning so that you have the entire day to get to work. If you are going to be doing any major renovations, these are what you need to take care of before anything else. This means that you should complete all demolition before you start with repairs. Remember, demolition can make a huge mess. If you fix something before you demo something else, it is safe to say that you may undo all of your hard work.

As you continue to work throughout the weekend, take the time to update your to do list along the way. This will help to make sure that you do not duplicate any tasks, or waste any unnecessary time.

By the time Sunday rolls around you should have a much better idea of where you stand. If you can take care of the demolition process on Saturday, the end of the weekend is when you can start making repairs. As a general rule of thumb, you should never start a large project that needs done in one day unless you have the time for it. Many new investors start big projects on the first weekend in the home, but end up running out of time before the work week begins. This can lead to a lot of lost work, or worse yet, having to work the wee hours of the morning. You want to avoid this because you do not want your investment home to get in the way of your actual nine to five job.

Once the first weekend is over, you will have an idea of what you have gotten yourself into. Hopefully you will have realized that you have a real gem on your hands, and that you are nowhere close to being in over your head. But remember, it is natural to feel a bit overwhelmed once you begin to work on an investment property. You may feel anxious to get things done, or in many cases you may start to second guess yourself. As long as you keep on schedule you should never begin to feel overly stressed.

Overall, the first weekend in an investment home is one of the most important. This is when you will decide whether or not you are going to get off to a good start. When you begin to move in the proper direction from the first weekend, you will have a much better feel for the job as you move forward.