Posted by SteveS(CPA) on June 16, 2001 at 17:48:35:
Jamie,
I’m a bit wary about giving anyone a business plan that I put together because the business plans (yes plans!) I use are tailored to me and my investment objectives.
Your resources, your market and your goals are totally and completely different than mine.
If you follow that outline you can use it and tailor it to your needs and you will be able to do anything you want.
Cut and paste business plans are like “lazy man’s way to business plans and riches” And I dont know any lazy ways to get rich.
To have an effective business plan it has to come from your head, with your creativity, and your brian power.
Anything else would be cheating you from the pleasure you’ll have by doing it.
My plan when I started to acquire investment real estate in 1980 was very simple – only four steps:
Buy the house/townhouse/condo I wanted to live in.
Convert my primary residence to a rental when I moved.
Purchase my replacement primary residence at a price that would allow my rent income from step 2 to cover my new mortgage payment.
Repeat steps 1 through 3 as often as necessary.
Following this approach, I successfully purchased 4 investment properties getting 95% owner occupied financing on each one.
In 1980, I was unschooled in the more creative techniques of real estate investing. My plan centered around my belief at the time that the best mortgage financing was only given to owner-occupants. My plan depended upon this financing approach, and constrained my housing expenses to something that was always affordable (no matter how many properties I acquired).
Of course, I abandoned this plan in 1985/1986. While I no longer follow this plan (you did ask for the plan I used when I first started), that does not make this plan, or a variation of it, invalid.
You can see examples of well made plans at http://www.bplans.com/ I dont know if they have any for REI, but the “basis” is pretty much the same no matter what type business your talking about.