← Your first doorLesson 3 of 3 · 1 min
The close, and the first year
Ninety days to keys, then the twelve months that teach you the business.
The close is a calendar, not a drama: inspection, appraisal, insurance, underwriting conditions, final walk, keys. Each has a deadline and each deadline has a person. Get their names in week one.
The first year is the real course
Everything before the close was theory. The first twelve months of ownership are where the education actually happens, and the tuition is only capped if you do two things:
- Track real expenses against your underwriting, monthly. The gap between projected and actual is the most valuable dataset you will ever build — it is what you will underwrite every future deal with.
- Touch your reserves for nothing but the property. Six months of debt service is not savings. It is the wall between a bad month and a forced sale.
Graduating
You clear this gate — and this course — when the property has run twelve months on real numbers and you still want the next one. That appetite, informed by actual expenses and an actual tenant, is what Year 4 is built on.
Next stop on the roadmap: the discipline of holding.