How Did We Do On Our 2020 Investing Goals? A Year In Review

Emil: Hey everyone. Welcome back for another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. My name is Emil Shour. And I'm joined by my lovely co hosts,   Tom: Tom Schneider,   Michael: and Michael album.   Emil: And today we're going to be talking about year end review. So we're going to look back at the 2020 goals we set for our real estate businesses at the beginning of the year. We're going to analyze what did we achieve from that we're also going to look at how did we pivot? You know, things change throughout the year? How did we pivot? What else did we do in our businesses, and then also look into 2021. And our goal here is to help you guys you know, as you're thinking through your strategy, hopefully help you guys come up with what that can look like and set some lofty goals. So let's hop in this episode.   Alright guys, so we're gonna be talking 2020 goals, what did we achieve? How did we pivot? What else do we do? And then looking in the future for what do we have set up for ourselves for 2021 goals? And I think the way we decided to structure this episode is we're gonna do hotseat. Normally, on episodes, we kind of talk about a topic and we go round robin in a circle. I think this one, each of us will sit in the hot seat, go through these kind of three parts of the questions. And then we'll move on to the next person in the hot seat. So any volunteers who wants to go first?   Michael: Let's put let's put grill marks on Tom.   Emil: Let's do it, dude.   Tom: Let's do it! Sssssssssssssss sizzle.   Emil: Tom Schneider.   Michael: Hey, yeah. Okay, Tom, what was your goal starting 2020, or goals de parentheses around the “s”.   Tom: I knew that 2020 was going to be a slower year on that side of my business. So wife delivered first baby in November of 2019 had a pretty massive house project, adding a bathroom on. So going into it, I knew it was sort of maintenance time, just maintain and possibly do some acquisitions near the end of q4, it was a definitely a quieter year, with the new rates that are available for financing. I was hoping to do a little bit more within the end of the year by possibly for refinancing some of the properties, I need to do a little bit of work on my insurance. I didn't get to some of those different items, but it's just like a weirdly busy time in my life with new baby in big projects on the homestead. So all in all, a pretty quiet year on the investing front. But you know, throughout all this, the portfolio performed. It just kept moving on not a lot of growth within it. But it was a known slow year within my personal portfolio.   Michael: Have you done any refinances on the investment stuff? Or on your personal   Tom: I did some refinancing not in 2020. And I actually I did do refinancing on my personal so you're right Michael, not a total do nothing kind of a year so did quite a bit, I had a key lock on my personal closed it out to refinance, finished the refinance and reopen the HELOC. So sort of a refresh on that side of my finances, which is all kind of tied together, which and it's a there's a huge queue, there's a huge line of people doing refinancing. So it took them honestly way longer than I was expecting to and like a little bit more work than I was expecting to. So I guess you're right, Michael, it wasn't a total do nothing. It was moving some of the personal finance stuff around and hopefully be set up for a big 2021.   Michael: And so on the investment side of refinancing, let's get personal here. Why didn't you refinance any of the investment properties with rates being as low as they are?   Tom: Well, I view as being a little bit too conservative. Usually banks don't want you doing like too many transactions or like new refinances at the same time. And the most important one that I had to get done was related to my personal so I don't I'm not going to be too hard on myself just because I had the other stuff going on. But where I definitely could have done more was redoi