My Real Estate Goals for 2023 and a Recap of 2022

Last Updated on March 29, 2023 by Mark Ferguson

I love setting goals, trying to accomplish them, and usually failing miserably! I say that in a joking manner but I really don’t mind not accomplishing all of my goals because that is not what goals are for. Goals are to help you do better and go farther than you would have gone without them. If I reach all of my goals then that means I made them too easy to accomplish and I probably stunted my growth. Every year I make very aggressive goals and I post them publicly to give myself accountability. I also change my goal structure as I learn what has and has not worked well for my goals.

My previous goals and how I did

It is crazy to think of how much I have accomplished over the years and I know that setting goals helped me do much more than I ever thought possible. I own more than $22 million worth of real estate and have accomplished many of my dreams. I still have a long way to go and I will keep this going as long as I can. Every year I write this article that goes over my previous goals and my future goals. You can see those other goal articles from previous years below:

• 2022
• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• 2016
• 2015
• 2014

Things have changed over the years as my business has changed and new things have come into my life. I started a real estate brokerage, started investing in commercial real estate, wrote many books, started brick-and-mortar businesses, and much more.

What were my goals for 2022?

For 2022, I wanted to change things up a little bit. I changed many of my goal structures and tried some new things which worked okay. I am going to change these again for 2023.

Complete 36 rehabs

I have always had a goal to flip a certain amount of houses each year. However, this goal can not always show what is happening in the business. Last year we started remodeling multi-units which means one flip might be the same as five flips. We also have been buying more rental properties and rehabbing and renting those properties can be very valuable as well but force us to do fewer flips. In 2022 I am changing my goal to be about the number of rehabs we do! I want to complete 36 rehabs on flips or rentals and this is per unit.

This was a tricky goal to keep track of because we had multiunit properties, commercial properties, and houses that we remodeled. I think we were right around 30 rehabs that we completed which was close to my goal. This was an interesting goal but we still had rehabs that took way too long. I also didn’t sell as many properties as I usually do and I think selling properties is a good goal to have (flips or rentals) since that helps keep cash coming in to support new buys and rehabs.

Here was one of my crazier rehabs!

Add $45k a month in passive income

I have had some weird goals of adding square footage of rentals as well. I like this goal and it is easy for me to measure but I also end up with vacant square footage which is negative and not positive. For this year, I am making a passive income goal that embraces both the acquiring and stabilizing of rentals. This goal can also be accomplished with refinances or starting businesses that create more cash flow like the liquor store or mini-mart.

This goal was also difficult to track and I did not hit it by any means. I did increase my cash flow by quite a bit but then decreased it at times with new purchases that weren’t rented yet or needed to be remodeled. I completed a refinance which helped the cash flow as well. I think I added around $15,000 in cash flow overall which is great but not close to my goal. I could have also done a better job focussing on this goal as well. Some deals have cash flow right away and some do not!

Refinance $2 million of debt

I had a goal to refinance $2 million of debt in 2021 and I have that same goal this year as well. After thinking about it, I may need to increase this goal since one refinance I have in progress will come close to $2 million! That refinance should also save me about $8,000 a month because it is paying off high-interest short-term debt with low-interest long-term debt!

It took me a long time to get that one refinance done but I did it! I did not do any other refinance rates increasing so much but I plan to look into more in 2023. I do have private money loans that I need to replace with bank loans or sell the properties at some point.

Make $500k in revenue from InvestFourMore

I had made goals to have really good months with my blog, and online business: Investfourmore. I realized the entire year is more important to focus on! I have made a goal to bring in $500,000 in revenue and we have pretty low overhead in this business. I am working with a new company to help me do this so watch out for a few new things coming out this year!

That new company I worked with was full of promises and short on results! Unfortunately, I wasted some money on them but that is part of the business. That was a frustrating experience and caused me to pull back from some of the online marketing for a while but I have not given up. I still do well online with revenue and have some new streams of income since Facebook and Instagram started paying content creators more. I think I can hit this number eventually but I am not there yet.

You can see my books here.

Add 200k social media followers

I am keeping this goal the same as well. We made some big progress with YouTube last year but had some negative progress with Instagram when my account was disabled and I thought might be gone for good! Luckily I got it back, but getting new followers after that has been challenging!

You never know what will happen with social media! My Instagram continues to be lackluster but TikTok is doing well and my YouTube took off after the squatter evictions and crazy post-occupancy house. I added more than 60k follows on Facebook in one year and much of that was thanks to anti-landlord people who comment all the time and help my engagement! I did not get to 200k but I think I added close to 100k followers and I plan to up that again.

Here is the squatter eviction video that did so well!

Add $3 million worth of debt

I stole this goal from Facebook when I saw another investor ask people how much debt they wanted to add this year. I loved this goal immediately! I am a huge fan of using good debt to build wealth. If I am adding debt it means I am buying more properties that will make me more money!

I came very close to this goal! With the refinance and a couple of large purchases including the 13k square foot industrial property and the liquor store and mini-mart I probably increased my debt by more than $3 million but then I sold a few properties as well which lowered it some.

Cash versus loans on real estate.

Buy a Lamborghini Countach

I am repeating this goal again and I may have to repeat it for a few years but I will achieve it eventually! I have gotten more serious about looking for a car and reached out to a few people in the industry who may know of something that is not technically for sale but may actually be for sale! I of course will keep everyone updated on this goal!

This was one that I make a lot of years and one year I know it will happen. Well, 2022 was the year it happened! I could not believe I was able to get it done but there was a great car that came up for sale at a decent price (for a Countach). It took some time to get it all worked out but the car is in my garage and recent auction sales have convinced me it was the right move at the time. I knew if I did not buy one soon I may never be able to get one so it was cool to pull that off.

My goals for 2023

For 2023 I am switching things up with some different goals to see what I like best! Here they are!

Sell 20 properties

I usually make a goal to flip a certain amount of homes which means I sell a flip. I felt the need to bring a goal like that back since I need to be selling properties fairly quickly to keep my business model sustainable since I am buying new ones and spending a lot on repairs. I did not sell as many properties in 2022 as I usually do. These may be rentals or flips that I sell in 2023. I have sold rentals in the past that were not the best performing and that is my plan now as well. I have had some properties that I had big plans for but those plans fell through for various reasons. I need to sell those and move on to other properties while keeping the good ones.

Buy 12 Flips

I think we only bought 6 flips in 2022! That was the fewest number of flips I have bought in many years but that number is also a little deceiving. Some of the flips I bought were multiunit properties that will take more work than a normal flip and some of the properties that I considered to be rental property purchases in 2022 may end up being long-term flips too. I have a few duplexes and triplexes that I was thinking of keeping or selling and I think I may sell them after fixing them up a bit.

I would like to increase the number of flips we buy because that part of the business is fun for me and Nikki, my project manager. I think we may find more this year with a more normal market. The housing market in 2022 was insane with many ups and downs but few deals to be had!

Buy $2,000,000 worth of rental properties

I have had goals to buy a certain amount of rentals (my goal to purchase 100 rentals) and to buy a certain amount of square footage of rentals (my goal to purchase 1 million square feet of rentals) but this year I am changing it to a dollar amount. I liked both goals but they both had issues. The 100 property goal was for houses I started buying large commercial properties. The 1 million square feet of rentals goal was cool but then I bought some crazy big properties that were mostly money pits. We will see how this goal goes.

Refinance $2 million worth of debt

This is one goal that I have been accomplishing and makes a huge difference in my finances. By refinancing private money into bank money, I free up those private money lenders to lend me more private money and reduce my interest payments while locking in loans for the long term. I have some new lenders to try this year and I can reach out to my old ones as well on a few properties.

Make $500k in revenue from Investfourmore

I have this same goal again! I have some new things to try and I may really focus on that business this year myself as well. I think there is a lot of opportunity there that I have not been fully tapping into. I would love to have people in my office who work on this business.

Add 250k social media followers

I think this goal is diable and at the same time challenging as well. The tricky part with social media is you never know what will do well or how your account will do. Some things I think will never do well end up being awesome and some that I think are awesome do horrible! One of the sub-goals in this is to hit $100k subscribers on YouTube. I have 90k now and gained 10k in the last 2 months but without crazy evictions, YouTube stops pushing my channel as much and that crazy run is over for now. Hopefully, I can get more steady and consistent growth without craziness.

Raise Revenues at my store from $65k to $95k per month

I bought a liquor store and mini-market in 2022 which was a goal of mine for a while. I have always wanted a brick-and-mortar store for some reason. I got my wish and it has been fun but also challenging. The store makes money even after paying rent to myself who owns the building as well. While it makes money, I think it can do so much better! One big change is we can serve more food options since I just upped our food license to a grocery with deli which allows us to prepare some foods. We will see how that goes!

Conclusion

Setting goals is very important and something I do every year and keep track of all the time. It took me a while to write this article this year but I had made my goals and was keeping track of them and working towards them prior to writing out the full article on them. To learn more about goals and why I use them check this out.