Real estate is one of the top industries where many millionaires have their fortunes made. Part of being successful in real estate requires a long-term strategy and careful planning. Understanding what your goals are is the first step in the process of starting your journey in real estate. Whether you want to be the next millionaire agent, flipper, or landlord, each role requires a goal to be set to best drive results. 

Before starting, you should truly identify what it is that you want real estate to deliver for you. Do you want a source of passive income, or are you looking to make a lot of quick profit from flips, or do you want it to be a career for you? Aligning your goals with your lifestyle is the best way to best choose the path that makes sense for you. Once you’ve identified what kind of lifestyle you’d like to have, then you need to work backward from your lifestyle goal. Start from the end and work your way backward to the beginning and record the steps down on paper. How many units do you need to generate the type of income you want? How many homes do you need to flip? How many deals do you need to close? Continue working your way backward until you get to the beginning. 

Now that you understand what your lifestyle goal is and have begun the process of working backward, it is time to get more granular. To drive the best results, it is best to follow a SMART plan. SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound. Structure all your goals as SMART goals to develop a clearer road map for what needs to be accomplished. 

Are your real estate goals specific? You cannot just say that your goal is to become a millionaire in real estate. That is too broad. Get to the specifics. What exactly are you trying to accomplish? What resources will you need to achieve your goals? Who needs to be involved? Get down to the specifics when outlining your SMART goal. 

Next, how will you measure performance? Are you going to calculate your rate of return per deal? How are you going to keep track of the number of cold calls you will make? By having measurable targets, you hold yourself more accountable for your performance. 

Is your goal attainable? Think about your current position. Are you in a financial position to start closing deals? Did you give yourself sufficient time to work through your goals? Stretch goals are important but they should also be attainable. 

How relevant are your goals? Make sure they are currently aligned with your current state of affairs. Becoming the next giant CEO of a real estate firm is probably not as relevant if you are simply flipping two deals a year. Be true to yourself and be realistic. 

Finally, ensure that you’re time-bound to your deadlines. A goal is not a goal without the proper deadline. Set short term and long term deadlines to follow when creating your targets and goals. 

By using the SMART action plan when setting up your real estate goals, you are more likely to have a higher success rate. Write down your goals and create accountability for you to hit them. Always be realistic, but align with what you truly want out of the real estate industry.