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Not in a buy cycle? In this episode, we talk about what investors can do in the meantime to prepare for when they are ready to invest.   --- Transcript   Tom: Greetings, and welcome to The Remote Real Estate Investor. On this weekend wisdom, we got a fun topic, it's what you can do as remote real estate investor, if you're not ready to buy, or not in an acquisition cycle, or just getting ready, all the different activities you can do to build the muscles to execute well, when it's time to buy. Alright, let's do it.   All right, so this weekend wisdom is made for people who want to be remote real estate investor, or perhaps they are in remote real estate investor, and they are looking for things to do to help level up when they are just not ready to buy. Or perhaps they don't have the funds to buy something along those lines. So I've got a couple of ideas. But I think I'm going to make it more fun by just putting Emil on the spot. It looks like he's not necessarily listening.   Alright Emil, what are some things that people who want to invest but perhaps are not ready to grab funds or whatever reason? How can they build muscles to be a good remote real estate investor without actually buying a property?   Emil: I would say so I'm kind of going through this myself on a little temporary pause. I am trying to just network with other people who invest where I invest, either through Facebook groups, BiggerPockets, forums, Roofstock Academy, wherever it is just meeting other people who invest where I invest early in my investing career, I had this very scarcity mindset about real estate investing, like why would anyone want to share information with other investors, like we're all competing against one another. But really, so many investors are so giving and willing to like, talk with other investors, because there's not many of us out there. So when you find another investor, especially if you're a remote investor, it's like, you know, that's your community, that's a tribe people love sharing information and just like talking to each other and getting best practices and stuff.   So like, for me, I've been trying to meet people who are local in St. Louis, talking to different property managers, different agents, just people who are local there who can help me, I don't know, get a better label and learn the market, find deals when I'm ready to find deals. So at this point, that's what I'm kind of focusing on.   Tom: Love it. It's such a good one. And I think the logical fallacy that there's only you know, so many properties out there, and I need a box, everybody out is just such a logical fallacy. Like there's, there's literally millions of houses out there. And it's a great reason to connect and share. And I mean, I guess there could be situations, right, where you're making the property, you're making an offer on it, and somebody you know, is actively buying in that same area, like then it's reasonable to use a little bit of caution on very specific deals. But generally speaking, that's that's a fallacy. I think that I had as well getting into it thinking that, you know, it's a zero sum game.     Michael: It could truly be a win win. I think, if you're thinking about that, and not willing to share information at a high level, like Tom you said, there are some things that of course, you want to keep your cards close to your vest, but at a high level, like if that's what you're thinking, then you're probably doing it wrong.   Tom: All right, Michael, things you can do. As an investor, perhaps you're not ready to buy right now, or you're not in the buying cycle.   Michael: Yeah, so similar to Emil. I'm kind of a great case study, because I'm not in a buy cycle. Right now. I am gearing up to be in a buy cycle. So right now, my wife and I sat down two weeks ago and are really honing in our finances and our spending and our savings rate, making sure that we are just storing up a bunch of dry powder. I'm also going through several refinances right now getting some equity out in the form of cash and just looking to hold on to that for a little bit. One so I can wrap up this project I've got working on and to just so I can have some more dry powder in the keg to deploy when I am ultimately ready to jump back into that buy cycle. So getting lean and mean and getting things in reserve.   Emil: You hold dry powder in a keg? That's a dangerous man.   Michael: That's not where you're supposed to hold right? Where do you hold your dry powder?   Emil: On the floor? I don't know.   Michael: But then there there's powder everywhere.   Emil: In a savings account?   Tom: On the shelf. Yes.   Michael: I'm talking about dry powder in a pirate sense of the word. By the way, you know what the pirates favorite letter is?   Emil: ARRR!   Michael: No, that'd be the sea!   Tom: Oh, Have you guys heard the Wellerman song remake? Ah, the Wellerman is just stuck in my head. It's like a pirate song and it was like a tick tock thing. Okay, here's your fun fact for the weekend wisdom. The wellerman is the person the ship that would deliver pirates their like goods. So like their tea and rum and stuff. And then the Tucker is the person from the whaling ship that had to clean the tongue anyways, sorry, that was it. So the Wellerman Search it up on YouTube while or when you guys will get it stuck in your head, catchy pirate song that was important.   Michael: I added that I just love just continuing down this rabbit hole, how you're like, oh, delivering their goods like T and ROM as if that's the only thing that pirates consume. Like, no, they don't eat bread or cheese or meat just exclusively tea and rum,   Tom: Listen to the Wellman song and you'll get it. Okay.   Michael: Okay. I definitely will. So yeah, that has been my my wife's focus for the last several months here getting this probably over the finish line and getting lean and mean to be able to move forward easily. Some other things just that I think folks can do above and beyond, those two things are just starting to really learn their market and hone in what their buybox criteria look like. So if you are just starting to invest and not feeling like you're ready, yet, there's a number of things you can do. But first and foremost, go get educated, whatever that looks like. So whether that's joining the Roofstock Academy, or having someone hold your hand along the way, who has invested before getting very specific on your criteria, what you're expecting of your investments, and then learning about the different areas, different markets throughout the country, or the world, potentially, that will be able to give you those type of returns or meet those criteria, is what you should be spending the most of your time doing, because that's time very well spent.   Tom: Awesome. I'll close this out here. So a couple of points that I was going to add on some of the existing stuff on learning the market super great. So pick a couple of markets that you think are you're interested in, I wouldn't have too many, just because what I'm gonna suggest you do is subscribe on there's a lot of online applications that you can get track, like sales as they're coming across like set boundaries in like similar to your buy box. So like set like the price range. And so you can just see every sold home and every new listing that comes up in that market. That's what we mean by knowing your market is like having a real pulse on what the transactions going on going in and going out are.   So a lot of places where you can track that Roofstock is one of them, where you can follow properties on the education stuff. Roofstock is a great spot. There's a lot of good online education Roofstock Academy is great, it's risk free, it's a paid program, but it's full money back if you're not happy or satisfied, whatever. So that'll be my one quick plug for Roofstock Academy, coaching and 50 hours of online yada yada all that good stuff on the education side is to get nerdy with a pro forma.   So someone that I was working with, with an academy, he took the initiative to basically just like you take apart a car is to took apart the pro forma for analyzing properties. So this is the calculator in Excel that you use to get IRR that you use to get cap rate. When he did it, he basically deconstructed it and then rebuilt it by himself. And I think that's such a good exercise ultimately knowing like, what are the levers on your return, I wouldn't say it's a hard requirement of being able to do that. But I think it's a good use of time, especially if you're not necessarily buying but you want to build those muscles up is to really know that particular model.   And the other one is to start talking to not just other investors in the market, but started talking to property managers, perhaps get their input on specific neighborhoods, I myself am a little bit of an introvert. So doing that, like takes a little bit of effort to do that. But every time I'm going to do it, it's like a muscle it's, you know, taking a lift of a bench press in the gym or something to build those muscles get a little uncomfortable, talk to property managers, something as simple as, Hey, my name is Tom, I'm an investor and I'm interested in this area. What are your thoughts on this address that I'm evaluating? And you can give my address or what do you think of this little neighborhood? Are there any neighborhoods that you think are particularly opportunistic or that are not opportunistic? So build those muscles, talk to those people talk to a lender, you don't have to do you know, find out who At what point are you going to have enough money to make an acquisition? If that's your holding point, right? Like how much of a downpayment Do you need, like getting all that information is going to make it a lot more clear. If you don't have a clear destination, it's hard to get there. Those are my brain word vomit of things that you can do that is going to put you in a good position when it's time to buy.   Awesome. Well thanks, everybody for listening and happy investing!   Emil: Happy investing   Michael: Happy investing.