I’ve waffled a bit on posting about my real estate plans for 2008, and it’s for a pretty simple reason: I do not know.
It’s easy to come out breathing fire in the fledgling new year, dedicating yourself anew to conquering the world, building empires, and making all that you see your own, but the reality is often far from that. And as much as we may hate to admit it, we’re often subject to larger forces beyond our control, that snub their noses and laugh merrily when we make loud proclamations.
I could say that I plan to flip x houses and make y money by Dec. 31st, 2008, but really, who knows? I don’t mean to pin too much hope on House #2, but I’m sort of looking at it as a bellwether for the next year for me, as far as real estate plans. It’s the first flip I’ve tried that isn’t complicated by other going-ons, and a pretty good dipstick as far as the type of deal I can reasonably expect to find in our area.
If I can show a decent profit on it, I’ll probably look to do 2-3 similar flips in the next year. If selling it drags on and on and it turns out our area is more afflicted by the general housing malaise than I’d anticipated, then I’m probably going to shift gears and work on our primary residence instead, and look to pick up a couple of rental properties during the year.
I’m not giving up on the idea of ocntinuing to flip houses (in both 2008 and beyond) but there’s a time and a market for everything, and I’m not sure that we’re in a flipping market. Living a bit out in the country doesn’t help, as it tends to take longer to move anything, even in hot markets, and the subprime woes hit especially hard, as I was looking to focus on starter home flips, but those are increasingly sticking around on the market longer and longer.
In a weird way, though, my enthusiasm for flipping and real estate in general is still very high, despite the slightly gloomy talk above. So while my focus may evolve a bit during the year, depending on how things play out, no fear of things going dark here.
If anything, quite the opposite, as I’ve been working on some related sites the last few weeks, including a community blog similar to BiggerPockets as well as some other REI-related projects.
I’ve spent the last month or so rehabbing some of the 75+ affiliate websites, projects, and blogs I have kicking around the Internet tubes, and one of my larger goals for 2008 is to get serious and work smarter when it comes to my Web ventures. I splashed around in 2007 trying lots of things but this year I want to focus more effort on the proven winners, as in many cases it’s simply a matter of finding what works then replicating it mercilessly.
First things first, though, is finishing House #2, as that tops all the priority lists. That sucker is going to be done by the end of the month, come hell or high water, and there’s still a ton of work to do.
