Here is how your real estate investment strategy is not a strategy
Updated: Sep 1, 2019

There are now strategies for strategies nowadays. There are ways to strategize about your next strategy. Have you thought about which strategies to take complete your work? Strategy has become a buzzword in both private and public sectors. The word strategy has saturated the planning process to a point that diminishes value of the word and what it can do for you or your business.
Most strategies are likely just a plan or a tactic. A strategy is macro-view of the way of operating that accomplishes a given objective. Think of it as the overarching guidelines that interlace all of the planning and decisions. A strategy is intended to be more agile for making decisions. A strategy allows flexibility to respond to unforeseen factors quickly without having to continually rewrite the plan. An effective strategy outlines how to reach given objectives in an efficient amount of effort and time.
You’re operating at a higher level than most investors if you have a written investing plan. You’re of an even smaller crowd if you follow your written plan. You are at the high end of investors if you have incorporated a strategy within your investing plan and are executing it. Planning and using a strategy are challenging. If it were easy, everyone would do it.
1,000 different contingency plans can be developed but yet still not address a particular circumstance. This is the shortfall of only developing a plan and not a strategy. The government is notorious for attempting to develop a plan for every conceivable course of action or instance. This way of operating is arduous, inflexible, and inefficient.
Sun Tzu developed The Art of War because he understood there was a need to learn how to operate during war beyond only how to win a single battle. Real estate investing can feel like going to battle every day so make decisions like a general rather than the field lieutenant. Plan beyond a single real estate deal or transaction.
Attributes that of a great real estate investing strategy:
-Clear objectives
-More qualitative than quantitative
-Considers the individual’s entire investment portfolio
-Addresses how and what to acquire and dispose to reach objectives
-Requires more than 1 hour to develop
Success can come without a strategy or plan. But how far will that way of operating take you? Does operating like that take you where you want to go? How much more could you achieve with a little more foresight?
Make decisions as a general in your campaign for wealth with an actual strategy.
Jake Ammon is a Vice President with Addison Commercial Real Estate in Jacksonville, FL. He specializes in commercial investment properties. Contact him at jake@acrei.com or call Jake at 1-904-834-9809.