Today we’re talking about one of my favorite topics—goals.  I love helping people figure out how to set and achieve their goals and discussing my own goals.  Now is a good time to sit down, do a review of last year’s real estate investing goals, and make a plan for 2023.

We’re looking for contributors for the 2023 Guide to Colorado Real Estate Investing Strategies.  This is the crowd-sourced book we publish every year for investors to write down their strategies for investing in Colorado.  Last year, we had 40 contributors and this year, we want to get even more.  The deadline to submit your chapter is mid-January, with a publishing date of April.  Check out the submission guidelines here.

To help you brainstorm and clarify your investing goals, I’m sharing the goals I made last year, and what I have planned for 2023. 

Looking Back on My 2022 Goals

Buy Two Rental Properties

I did not accomplish this goal.  I didn’t complete my tax returns until September, and the market had shifted by that point.  Since I’m also involved in real estate as a career, it’s important for me to be extra conservative right now, and I didn’t want to deploy all my cash into rentals.  Instead, I shifted some of my money to passive investments. 

Continue Passive Investing with My 401K

I did two passive investments with VARECO, along with investing in Ironton Capital and Samuel Drive.  I look at these as buying rentals in a different form.  With all of the changes in the market, this was the right move for me. 

Make Progress on Buying an Office Building for Envision Advisors

I’m crossing that goal off of my goals list.  Last year, I bought a different office building and realized that when you buy a building for your company, it’s a difficult balancing act.  From an investment standpoint, you want to find the best deal for your dollar, but finding a property that’s a great investment and a good fit for your business is not always a recipe for success. 

Lon Welsh pointed out to me that the best way to accomplish a goal like this is to think bigger.  For instance, he owns the Locust St office building that allowed him to scale and gave his company flexibility while still being a great investment. 

All in all, I met some goals, others changed, and the rest I didn’t accomplish.  That’s ok.  I used to beat myself up when I didn’t accomplish everything on my list, but I learned that that’s part of life.  It’s important to be realistic and hold yourself accountable, but if something changes—like a shifting market or rising interest rates—you need to be flexible. 

Looking Ahead to My 2023 Goals

With my goals for 2023, I’m focusing on what’s best for my life.  I want to make the best use of my time and balance my goals with other important aspects of my life, like my two kids and building my businesses. 

Investing Goals

Buy One Directly Owned Rental Property

I’m going to continue being more conservative than usual this year in order to sit on more cash.  With the market changes, I don’t want to lose anything in years two or three, and I’ll be able to play better offense in the future if I have the cash from playing defense now. 

I’ll probably purchase this property in the second half of the year.  While there are good opportunities for fixer uppers in the market right now, I want a turnkey asset that won’t require a lot of work on my part. 

Continue Passive Investing

I plan to keep passively investing in real estate using my after-tax dollars and 401K. 

Business Goals

Business is where I spend the majority of my time and energy.  It’s important for everyone to realize where they want to focus and figure out what’s the right fit for them.  My active bandwidth goes towards my businesses in the real estate space. 

Increase client education

While I won’t go into every detail, I want to concentrate on client education.  I love educating people about real estate investing, especially as a long-term wealth building strategy.  Be on the lookout for an upcoming webinar if you want to hear more about these plans. 

Envision Advisors

I want to add 1-4 agents to the Envision Advisors team in 2023.  These agents need to bring value to the table: I want experienced people who can help us expand geographically or who have investing niches that will be helpful for our clients. 

Curtis St Media

I can’t believe it’s been a year since Curtis St Media officially became an LLC.  Over the past five years, I’ve been building out the media side of the company and it’s grown from 3 to 15 people.  This is what drives education, connects people, and allows us to network at scale.  I’m excited to keep growing and for the behind-the-scenes projects Curtis St Media is working on. 

Property Llama

Our portfolio analysis software is a great tool for helping investors understand their portfolio and identify opportunities for growth.  We just wrapped up Portfolio Mastermind 2.0, which was a huge success with 600 people registering for it.  It validated a lot of our vision for Property Llama and helped us figure out the ultimate direction we want to take with it.  I’m excited to keep scaling and officially launch the software in the first quarter of 2023 with plans to take it national. 

Ironton Capital

Passive investing wasn’t on my goals list originally, but in April 2022 Lon was in the early stages of developing Ironton Capital.  He asked if I wanted to help out, and I said absolutely.  It’s a no-brainer to work with Lon on an investing or business venture.  Helping launch Ironton Capital allowed me to see a more complete picture of long-term wealth building. I love having directly owned rentals plus passive investments.  I’m looking forward to helping clients understand this opportunity and use Ironton Capital’s services.

Build out the Human Advisory Side of Business

PAM 2.0 made me realize we need a human element to help clients understand how to build wealth.  We’re working on building out our network and creating a function for agents to use with their clients.  I’ll have more details later this month. 

Create Your Investing Goals for 2023

Something I’ve learned doing this for so many years is that goals are half art and half science.  There’s power in writing down and discussing your goals, but you also need to be accepting of the things you can’t control.  One thing you can always count on is change, and being able to adapt to that change will help you clarify your goals.

Please, write down your real estate investing goals and put them in the 2023 book—everyone is welcome, no matter where you are on your investing journey.  Check out our guidelines and get writing.

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