Posts Tagged ‘portfolio’

In our A to Z of Property Investing we’ve reached G – and G is for Goals. If you’re involved in the business of property investing, then it helps to have goals. Goals give you something to aim for and a target to work towards and can help keep you focused through good and bad times.

When you’re thinking about what goals you may like to have, it helps to consider them in terms of short-term property investing goals, medium term and long-term goals. In the short-term, your aim may be to purchase and let two properties, keep them going well and see the value on the properties rise. In the medium term, you may be keen to buy another two properties, to double your earnings. In the long-term, your goal for the future may be to build up a property portfolio of 20 or more properties.

It goes without saying that most people aren’t in the position to pop out and buy 20 properties outright – it takes time, commitment and effort to build up to that stage. If you were just starting out and only had one goal – to own 20 properties – it may seem rather far off, so having smaller goals along the way can help maintain your motivation and give you other, more achievable, milestones to reach.

Other smaller goals can be set on a monthly, half-yearly or yearly basis and can involve anything from putting a certain amount of money aside for future investments, to gaining new tenants for your properties. If you want to be reminded of your goals, then some people find that writing down your goals or sticking a copy of them up where you’ll see them regularly, such as on a noticeboard, can help them keep focused.

If you’ve not stopped to think about or plan out your own goals recently, then why not have a go now? We’re over halfway through the year, so you could use the latter half of this year to set some small, achievable goals and see how you get on. In January 2011, you could review how you’ve done and then set yourself some new goals to work towards next year.

Not all goals work out as planned, particularly if they’re affected by the wider economic situation, and there may be times when you have to go back a step or two before moving forwards again. In the case of long-term goals, your eventual goalposts may change over time, or you may wish to revise your aims.

Whether you stick to your goals completely, or find them changing over time, having the ideas mapped out in the first place can be very useful and, if nothing else, will give you ideas and information to look back on when you’re reflecting on your property investing career.

Catch up on the other instalments in our A to Z of Property Investing series:

A is for Appreciation
B is for Buy-to-Let
C is for Contracts
D is for Deals
E is for Experience
F is for Freehold