Welcome to “Tarl's Weekly Insights," my take on real estate today. 

Hey,

I hope you got a ton of value from last week’s insights into the market. If you missed it, definitely go back and check that out! We have crazy times coming our way and you better be prepared.

Which leads me to my newsletter today. In being prepared, you need to make sure your business is SOLID and ready for anything.

When the market is shifting, you’re not going to want to build your whole foundation from the ground up while that ground is moving under you… I’m going to share with you the approach I took in setting that foundation up.

A quick reminder that if you didn’t secure your ticket last week to REI Summit May 3-5th in Denver, Colorado, prices are going up in the next couple days!

(I promise we’re not going to sell you anything, just high quality education and networking!) 

To save nearly $800 off the full price ticket, visit www.reisummit2024.com and make sure to use the discount code, TARL10, to save even more.

(I am going to spill some of what’s happening behind the scenes with my Flippers Anonymous program at the end that’s going to lead up to a bigger announcement soon, don’t miss that!)

Is your real estate business dependent on you? Are you in a prison or are you currently building one for yourself?

In 2017, my business did more deals, made more money, hired more people, and did bigger projects than it did in 2016.

Yet, my business had more overhead, more headaches, more challenges… and most importantly… I personally made close to the same amount of money both years.

By October 2017, I reached my breaking point. We were in the middle of seventeen rehab projects in Seattle/Tacoma WA ranging from 60k-300k in construction costs.

I had just fired my project manager (for lots of reasons – DM me on Instagram if that’s something you want to hear more about in the future).

I just sold a project I wanted to keep due to a projected cash crunch to float overhead and future purchases.

I was running the largest meetups for investors in the PNW for some silly reason…

And I had been going NON-STOP in business for the last six years straight.

Needless to say, I was burning out and questioning why I was investing in real estate to begin with.

I never once asked myself "what is my purpose for doing this business?" or "what is my goal with real estate?" 

If I came close to answering this question, then I would answer "Make more money then I did before!" Simple!

Yet, here I was approaching the end of 2017 with more headaches and challenges and stress, making the same amount of money despite doing more deals with better margins… WTF?!?!

I have talked about this many times on stage, on podcasts, in videos and past posts – if you want to hear some of my story, I spoke about it last year at the Limitless Expo which you can watch here.

Long story short, despite all the stress in my life during that time, if I did not go through it, I would not have realized that I built a prison around me in my business.

In order to break down those walls, I had to look at my entire business and start at the foundation. Luckily for me at that time, my business had a lot of systems and processes that allowed me to scale as much as I did.

I just needed to re-examine MY role in each of them, rethink the purpose of the business, and make changes from there.

This later led to my wife and I traveling 6 months in 2018, spending every day together, and focusing on KEEPING deals instead of flipping every one of them. Sometimes all you need is ONE decision, to make a massive change in your life.

That decision to re-examine my business and start from the foundation, led to me creating everything that I have today and building massive freedom in my life.

I believe that for my business, and most real estate investment businesses, there are 6 stages that need to be processed and systemized in order to either SCALE your business and/or FREE you from it. Those are represented in the graphic of the pyramid below:

Business strategy – the foundation of it all. This is your purpose for the business and the strategy to execute, where it all begins, and sets the tone for all other processes, systems, team members, investments, etc.

You cannot invest in real estate without a property to invest in. Sourcing and buying properties is the name of the game – acquisitions. How specific can you get with your ideal "buy-box" when it comes to your business? Even if you are a Limited Partner (LP) and want to invest passively, you still must define your investment “buy-box” in order to simplify and systemize your investments.

Finding deals is one thing, being able to close on them is another. Whether it's handling hard money lenders, or raising private money, you need a process that is simple and repeatable when it comes to funding and transaction coordination. Especially if you plan on doing any sort of volume. The devil is in the details here.

Planning… the stage that most house flippers are known to skip completely! In short, the more you plan out your property BEFORE you start work on the property (rehab, construction, tenant turnover, whatever), the smoother everything else goes. Less change orders, less headaches, less time. More importantly, a lot less stress.

If you have a solid business strategy, made a great acquisition, set up the right funding, and spent the time to make a plan for the property, then the rehab and construction phase should smoothly take off. I will never say you won’t have problems at this stage, because you will 100% have problems (it’s construction...), but you will be less surprised and better able to handle the challenges that arise if you have a plan for handling them and a process to follow.

You did it! You’re almost to the finish line with stabilization or disposition as your last step. Are you keeping or selling? However, don't trip before you cross the finish line! Getting a property fully stabilized once rehab is complete is an entire process of its own. Even if you plan on selling, having a great process for pre-listing QC and prep is crucial. Not to mention handling buyer inspection surprises… The final step in this stage is closing out the property financially and counting how much money you made… or didn't make… as well as creating an After Action Review of what went right and what went wrong, which will be used to update and change your process starting at the beginning of Stage 1 (business strategy).

The key to creating freedom in your business, as well as being able to KEEP more deals and DO more deals, is systemizing and processing out the 6 stages I have listed for you. The better you get at the actual business, along with putting in the work of creating an ACTUAL business, the less you have to think about it and the more you can focus on what's important to you.

Want to think even LESS?

(Key word: think. I didn’t say DO less… but we’ll get there)

I’m going to be launching a new program in the next couple weeks within Flippers Anonymous... My goal is to guide our community of Recovering House Flippers through a 6 week challenge so they’re not scrambling when shifts start happening.

All they (and you) need to do is SHOW UP… but if you’re afraid of the work it takes to build a real business, this really isn’t for you.

If you’re interested in locking in the near-nothing price I have the membership set at right now, you’ll want to join ASAP. My team keeps hounding me that it’s already way too low…

Want to get in deeper on something I mentioned in this newsletter? DM me on Instagram.

Talk soon,

Tarl Yarber