2019 real estate business plan pdf

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Real Estate Business Plan Template

Download our template and create a business plan for your real estate business!

Updated September 22, 2023 Written by Josh Sainsbury | Reviewed by Brooke Davis

A real estate business plan is as essential as a business plan for any new or existing business. This step-by-step guide will explain how to make a real estate business plan, provide a real estate business plan template for you to work with, and explain how and why each step is necessary for your business plan to be effective.

We also provide links to downloadable templates to help you create your real estate business plan and sample plans to show you the best ways to tailor your plan for any number of real estate business needs.

Whether you seek investors to grow your business or want to track your goals from year to year as your business develops, a carefully crafted plan will help you.

Why You Need a Business Plan for Your Real Estate Business

How to write a business plan for real estate, real estate business plan sample.

The real estate business plan fills several needs. It gives you an outline of your business goals and the direction you want your business to take. It keeps you in line with industry trends. It lets you monitor your annual performance and change your goals as the market changes.

An effective real estate business plan also acts as a financial summary of your business, showing how it stands about your competition and the industry. The business plan acts as a road map for you and a snapshot of your business for any investors or bankers who want to understand your business.

A real estate business plan will help you spot risks and weaknesses early in your business development and help you set realistic goals for your business.

These are known as SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based goals.

Creating a business plan without goals is like starting a journey without a destination. Having a destination without a map means going down many blind alleys, taking unnecessary detours, and wasting time as you frequently need to return and start again.

Your business plan will help you avoid these pitfalls and adjust your course while you travel towards your final goal — a successful real estate business.

You must cover critical topics and include the correct information to ensure your business plan is as effective as possible. Follow our guide to writing a well-formed real estate business plan below.

1. Executive Summary

The executive summary contains an overall review of the rest of the business plan. It should include an outline of your history, your mission statement, and an overview of the rest of the report.

This section will include things like:

• Target clients with a fictional “ideal buyer” persona;
• Target neighborhoods, price ranges, and listings;
• Market overviews and potential threats and opportunities;
• A marketing plan outline.
• Your mission statement. This should include where and how your agency was founded, discuss the legal and financial structure, and stress your dedication to your customers and any special advantages you provide to your target clients.

2. Management Team

If you have a management team or a group that has contributed to the business’s success, summarize their names and contributions.

This section highlights everyone who has been involved in your business.

• Owners, founders, and original managers;
• New management, assigned duties and areas, and specific clients;
• Planned management expansion and anticipated managerial goals.
• Include all information about your managers, names, positions and duties, education and work history, past business successes, and other relevant details. Think of this section as your management team’s biography.

As the business expands, your management team section will be one section that needs constant improvement and updating.

3. Products and Services 

Your products and services should be phrased to make you unique in the industry and highlight how you stand out from your competitors. As a real estate business, what do you provide for your clients that others do not? How do your agents compare with your competition?

In real estate, your product is your listing and your brand. What is it that makes your company the one that your target buyer wants to use? In this section, you will highlight the following:

• Your niche market and how you acquire specific listings in your area;
• Your lead generation model and the way you obtain leads that differentiate you from your competitors;
• Your branding. A defining brand can be nebulous, and many firms resort to hiring a brand agent to help them customize and market their brand. You may be a family-friendly agent or specialize in the young professionals market. Determining how you present yourself is critical to your service profile.

4. Customers and Marketing

The customers and marketing section lets you identify your niche within the real estate business and how you intend to reach them.

You defined your ideal customer in your executive summary; now is where you expand on your perfect customer “persona.” A “persona” is the industry name for the imaginary person you sell to.

• Their demographics, age, gender, job, family preference, and income.
• Deal-breakers. What do they have to have in a home? What can they do without?
• Amenities, recreation, entertainment. Does your ideal buyer need dog parks nearby or bike paths? Do they want access to the water or the theater district?
• What type of neighborhood is your ideal buyer looking for? Do they need a school district or prefer to be far from children?

After establishing your ideal customer, you can select the viability of your marketing niche. For instance, is your buyer likely to be a first-time buyer? If so, what percentage of first-time sales were made in your chosen area in the last two years?

The more detailed you can make your Customers and Marketing section, the more you know how your business will likely thrive in your chosen area.

5. SWOT Analysis

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are necessary for every business analysis. In what areas are you and your business strongest, and where do you need improvement?

Investors appreciate a business owner who can accurately pinpoint their good and bad points and demonstrate how to improve.

This analysis should be fact-based, not opinion-based. You should be able to provide statistics and metrics for your and your competitors’ business research. Some things to consider are:

• In what areas of your business plan are you strongest? Are they similar or dissimilar to your nearest competitor’s strengths?
• In what areas are you weakest? Are you weak where your competitors are strongest?
• What opportunities can you exploit in the next six to 12 months? Are these opportunities unavailable to your competitors?
• What threats are you facing in the next year? How can you avoid these threats or turn them into advantages?

By analyzing your business objectively and reviewing all the facts and numbers, you can determine how you will be placed in the next year.

6. Financials 

The meat of your business plan is the financials. This includes your expenses, annual income forecast (sales, commissions, or other income), cash flow, and costs. As your business grows, your business plan will include previous years’ financials to track the growth.

Your financials should include, at a minimum:

• Expenses. These include operating expenses, whether you have a physical location or are still in the virtual stage of operations, licensing and permitting, fees and filing costs, and other operating expenses. If you have employees, it will also include payroll.
• The past income portion will track how much you have already made. You should be able to show how many leads you have generated, how many transactions you made, and your income from those efforts.
• Future income is how much you would like to make going forward. You can estimate how many leads are needed per transaction and how many transactions per sale from your past efforts.
• Goals. With this information, you should include your projections for the next year and five-year periods. Presumably, you wish to increase profit over the next five years. You can demonstrate how to achieve these goals using income tracking and market research.

7. Operations

Operations contain the moving parts of your financial projections. This section describes how you intend to reach your business goals in the upcoming year. This section might also include upcoming personnel changes, office expansions, etc.

Real Estate operations can include your projected hours of operation, your action plan for achieving your goals, and your marketing and advertising plan. Initially, this may be somewhat fluid if you do not plan to have set hours of operation or a brick-and-mortar office.

Later, as your business increases, this section will include business hours, open house times, etc.

8. Appendix

If your real estate business plan includes any ancillary documents, such as your Articles of Incorporation or a  Business Purchase Agreement , they would be included in the Appendix.

After your first real estate business plan, your previous years’ plans will go into the Appendix so they can be reviewed by potential investors or by your board. You can also include your quarterly statements and other financial documents.

Your Appendix is the section for any documents you want to have that are not essential for your readers’ overall understanding.

Now that you know what goes into your real estate business plan, all that is left for you to do is click on the business plan creation template and begin. Ensure you have all your documentation and research-ready in advance, and the template will provide you with cues as to what information needs to go into which spaces.

After filling in all the blanks, the template will generate a real estate business plan to your specifications.

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• Business plans

Real Estate Business Plan Template

Used 4,872 times

Start off your new real estate business on the right foot by using a real estate business plan template to ensure your goals, visions, and finances are sorted.

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Created by:

​ [Sender.FirstName] [Sender.LastName] ​

​ [Sender.Company] ​

Prepared for:

​ [Recipient.FirstName] [Recipient.LastName]

​ [Recipient.Company] ​

Executive Summary

​ [Sender.Company] , located at [Sender.State] , is a new (Add type, i.e., residential, commercial, industrial) real estate brokerage firm specializing in (Add specialty). The company will operate professionally, conveniently located next to [Sender.StreetAddress] [Sender.City] [Sender.PostalCode] . [Sender.Company] is headed by [Sender.FirstName] [Sender.LastName] , (Add important credentials of the Sender).

​ [Sender.Company] ’s services include:

Listing rentals for landlords.

Assisting tenants in finding rentals.

Selling homes.

Helping buyers find homes.

By serving both renters and homeowners, [Sender.Company] hopes to become a long-term partner with each client rather than part of a one-time transaction.

Business Description

The business is currently being run out of (address).

Since incorporation, the Company has achieved the following milestones:

Found office space and signed Letter of Intent to lease it

Developed the company’s name, logo, and website located at (Enter website)

Hired an interior designer for the decor and furniture layout

Determined equipment and fixture requirements

Began recruiting key employees

Mission Statement

​ [Sender.Company] ’s long-term goal is to become the number-one name in residential real estate brokerage in terms of the right balance of price and customer service quality.

We seek to do this by ensuring customer satisfaction and developing a loyal and trusting clientele.

The following are a series of steps that will lead to this long-term success. [Sender.Company] expects to achieve the following milestones in the following (Add number) months:

Customer Segments

​ [Sender.Company] will serve the residents and businesses in (Enter company location).

The area we serve is affluent and has the disposable income/profits required to demand off-premises catering services.

Renters and Potential Renters

Description: Temporary renters or those saving towards a purchase. Some are lifelong renters.

Age Range: _______ (Avg. age: 25)

Unique: Fast apartment turnover rate.

Home Buyers

Description: Mostly newcomers, often from a distance.

Age Range: _______ (Avg. age: 33)

Preferences: Value brokers knowledgeable about both listings and the local real estate market.

Home Sellers

Description: Mostly relocating, some upgrading or downsizing within the community.

Age Range: _______ (Avg. age: 45)

Preferences: Seek brokers skilled in pricing, staging, and negotiation.

Description: Owners renting out space, from professional landlords to those capitalizing on extra space.

Preferences: Value brokers adept at pricing, finding tenants, and handling initial inquiries.

Real Estate Industry Overview

Last year, the U.S. real estate sale and brokerage agencies generated $_______ billion in revenue and employed _______ people.

_______ businesses operated in this market, averaging $_______ per business.

Average employee wage in the industry was $_______.

Economic Significance

Real estate's health is crucial for the American economy.

Key metrics like new home sales, listings, and prices are closely monitored.

Revenue Streams

Brokerage fees, commissions, property management, consulting, and appraisal fees are major revenue sources.

Economies of Scale

Modest economies of scale exist, favoring larger firms, though many remain too small to fully benefit.

Key Players

Major industry players include Realogy, Equity Residential, AIMCO, HomeServices, and RE/MAX.

Products, Programs, and Services

​ [Sender.Company] will be able to provide clients with the following services:

As [Sender.FirstName] [Sender.LastName] understands, the key to a successful real estate brokerage business is building referrals and a long-term reputation as a trustworthy agent in the community. [Sender.FirstName] [Sender.LastName] will continue to reach out to past clients in future years to answer questions and to continue to develop a relationship.

Marketing Plan

The [sender.company] brand.

The [Sender.Company] brand will focus on the Company’s unique value proposition:

Client-focused residential real estate brokerage services, where the Company’s interests are aligned with the customer

Service built on long-term relationships and personal attention

Big-firm expertise in a small-firm environment

Promotions Strategy

​ [Sender.Company] will initially invest significant time and energy into contacting potential clients and building an initial client base.

Referral Strategy

Encourage Referrals: [Sender.Company] will incentivize clients for referrals, fostering organic growth.

Strategic Networking: [Sender.Company] will actively network with home contractors, real estate developers, and businesses importing employees, generating qualified leads.

Internet Promotion

SEO and PPC Focus: [Sender.Company] will invest in local SEO and pay-per-click advertising, optimizing website traffic.

Content-Rich Website: The website will showcase [Sender.Company] as a reputable real estate brokerage.

Publications

Key Listings: Properties will be featured in local publications, maximizing exposure.

Targeted Brochures: Brochures will be distributed in locations frequented by potential clients.

Community Engagement: Free seminars will be offered to familiarize residents with [Sender.Company] 's expertise and character.

Pricing Strategy

​ [Sender.Company] ’s pricing will rely on the standard industry rates to neither be perceived as a luxury nor a discount broker. 3% is the commission on sales and 3% on purchases.

Apartments and other rentals will have fees paid only by the tenants at the standard rate of one month’s rent. By seeking quality clients and maintaining long-term relationships with them, [Sender.Company] will fend off pressure to discount their rates, even in down markets.

Operations Plan

​ [Sender.Company] will carry out its day-to-day operations primarily on an appointment basis.

​ [Sender.FirstName] [Sender.LastName] will work as needed, including weekends and prime showing times, and generally take days off on weekdays.

Management Organization

Founder's expertise.

Founder: [Sender.FirstName] [Sender.LastName] ​

Experience: (Number of years) years as a licensed real estate broker.

Credentials: (Enter credentials)

Specialization: (Specify area of specialization and years of experience)

Achievements

Accolades: (Enter any awards or accolades)

Licensing and Affiliations

License: (Enter state), (Enter other states)

Association Membership: National Association of Realtors

Administrative Support

​ [Sender.Company] employs (Assistant.Name), an experienced assistant, to handle various administrative duties in the office. (Assistant.Name) has worked with C-level executives and possesses significant administrative experience.

Financial Plan

Revenue and cost drivers.

​ [Sender.Company] ’s revenues will come primarily from the commissions earned from client real estate sales, purchases, and rental fees. Half of the deals each quarter are expected to be rentals, one-quarter of sales, and one-quarter of purchases.

As with most services, labor expenses will be key cost drivers. [Sender.FirstName] [Sender.LastName] and future brokers will earn a competitive base salary. Furthermore, the costs of transactions are projected to be roughly 40% of regular commission revenue and cover the advertising of listings, travel and supply costs for clients, and other direct costs for each deal.

Moreover, ongoing marketing expenditures are also notable cost drivers for [Sender.Company] .

Capital Requirements and Use of Funds

​ [Sender.Company] is seeking total funding of (Enter the amount needed) of debt capital to open its office. The capital will be used for funding capital expenditures and location build-out, hiring initial employees, marketing expenses, and working capital.

Specifically, these funds will be used as follows:

Store design/build: $(Enter value)

Working capital: $(Enter value) to pay for marketing, salaries, and lease costs until [Sender.Company] reaches the break-even point

Key Assumptions and Forecasts

The following table reflects the key revenue and cost assumptions made in the financial model.

5 Year Annual Income Statement

5 Year Annual Balance Sheet

5 Year Annual Cash Flow Statement

Confidentiality Statement

The confidential information and trade secrets described above shall remain the exclusive property of the real estate business. They shall not be shared or removed from the premises of the real estate business under any circumstances whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the real estate business.

List any additional documents that might provide more information on your real estate business or operations here.

​ [Recipient.FirstName] [Recipient.LastName] ​

Care to rate this template?

Your rating will help others.

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Free Real Estate Business Plan Template Download

Download this free real estate business plan template along with the action steps form to maximize plan implementation.

‘Tis the season to create your real estate business plan — and let this FREE downloadable template be your guide! In today’s video, I’ll walk you through how to create your 1-3-5 one-page business plan for your real estate business. I’ll also go over strategies to make your business plan work. To access your free download of the 1-3-5 one-page business plan as well as the action steps form, scroll down to the end of this blog post. Tune in to my video, below, for added insight and guidance.

VIDEO: Free Real Estate Business Plan Template Download

Business plans that work

Here are a few quick tips to consider as you craft your 1-3-5 single-page real estate business plan using our free templates below.

1. The 1-3-5- format is key — one big annual goal at the top, followed by three key focus areas that are broken into five objectives for each.

2. A single page document keeps your business plan streamlined and simple. Gone are the days of large, multi-page business plans that you know you’ll never read again. Keeping everything on one page forces you to focus on what matters and ensures that you will be able to read it again and again throughout the year to re-center yourself.

3. Be SMART. Make your goal , focus areas, and objectives SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound ).

4. Stretch but don’t strain. This goes along with making your goal, focus areas, and objectives SMART. You want to create goals that will stretch you, but you don’t want to stretch so much that you hurt yourself. A lofty goal that is well beyond reach can be very damaging.

5. Create action steps with due dates to help you prioritize. If there’s one supportive document we recommend to your business plan, its an action steps page. These action steps turn goals into actionable to-do items with concrete deadlines.

Download your FREE real estate business plan template

To download your free single-page real estate business plan template, click the image below! Create your big annual goal, your three key focus areas, and your five key objectives for each focus area.

Action steps to support your business plan

For your free download of the Action Steps fillable PDF form from the video above, click on the image below. These Action Steps will help you prioritize your to-dos that will help you achieve your five objectives from your real estate business plan template.

Need more help?

Maybe you are feeling behind, or overwhelmed, or like you need a little guidance to make a business plan that you know you’ll stick with. Take a look at our Business Planning course , which will walk you through the process step by step. And if you need more help in general, or if you need to create an implementation plan, hire an ICC coach today. It all starts with a completely free consultation call — reach out today!

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7 Steps to Writing a Real Estate Business Plan (+ Template)

As a licensed real estate agent in Florida, Jodie built a successful real estate business by combining her real estate knowledge, copywriting, and digital marketing expertise. See full bio

• Do Agents Really Need a Business Plan?
• Write a Real Estate Business Plan in 7 Easy Steps
• Identify Who You Are as a Real Estate Agent
• Analyze Your Real Estate Market
• Identify Your Ideal Client
• Conduct a SWOT Analysis
• Establish Your SMART Goals
• Create Your Financial Plan
• Track Your Progress & Adjust as Needed
• Bringing It All Together

Are you ready to take your business to the next level? I’ve got just the thing to help you— a foolproof real estate business plan. But before you start thinking, “Ugh, not a boring business plan for real estate,” hear me out. I’ve got a template that’ll make the process a breeze. Plus, I’ll walk you through seven easy steps to craft a plan to put you ahead of the game and have you achieve your wildest real estate dreams in no time. Your success story starts now.

Key Takeaways:

• A well-crafted business plan is your roadmap to success. It guides your decisions and keeps you focused on your goals.
• Create a solid plan by defining your mission, vision, and values, analyzing your market and ideal client, conducting a SWOT analysis, setting SMART goals, and creating a financial plan.
• Regularly track your progress, review your key performance indicators (KPIs), stay flexible, and seek accountability to ensure long-term success.
• Remember, your Realtor business plan should evolve with your business. Embrace change and stay focused on your goals to make your real estate dreams a reality.

Do Agents Really Need a Real Estate Business Plan?

Absolutely. Your real estate agent business plan is your roadmap to success. Without it, you risk losing direction and focus in your real estate career.

A well-crafted business plan helps you:

• Understand your current position in the market
• Set clear and achievable goals
• Create a roadmap for success
• Track your progress and performance
• Make informed decisions and adjustments

Think of your real estate business planning as your GPS, guiding you from your current situation to your desired destination. It serves as your North Star, keeping you focused and on track, even in challenging times. Invest the time to create a solid business plan, and you’ll be well-positioned to succeed in your market and achieve your goals. Your future self will appreciate the effort you put in now.

Before we dive into this section, get our real estate business plan template ( click here to go back up to grab it ) and work through it as I explain each section. I’ll give you some direction on each element to help you craft your own business plan.

1. Identify Who You Are as a Real Estate Agent

Let’s start with your “why.” Understanding your purpose for choosing real estate is crucial because it is the foundation for your business plan and guides your decision-making process. Defining your mission, vision, and values will help you stay focused and motivated as you navigate your real estate career.

Mission: Your mission statement defines your purpose for choosing real estate. It clearly states what you’re trying to do, the problem you want to solve, and the difference you want to make.

Ex: Wanda Sellfast’s mission is to empower first-time homebuyers in Sunnyvale, California, to achieve their dream of homeownership and build long-term wealth through real estate.

Vision: Your vision statement focuses on the ultimate outcome you want to achieve for your clients and community.

Ex: Wanda Sellfast’s vision is a Sunnyvale, where everyone has the opportunity to own a home and build a stable, secure future, creating a more inclusive and prosperous community for all.

Values: Your core values are the guiding principles that shape your behavior, decisions, and interactions with clients and colleagues.

Ex: Wanda Sellfast’s core values include:

• Integrity: Being honest, transparent, and ethical in all dealings.
• Dedication: Being devoted to clients’ success and going the extra mile.
• Community: Building strong, vibrant communities and giving back.

Clearly defining your mission, vision, and values lays the foundation for a strong and purposeful real estate business that will help you positively impact your clients’ lives and your community.

2. Analyze Your Real Estate Market

As a real estate pro, you must deeply understand your local market. This knowledge includes knowing key metrics such as average days on market, average price points, common home styles and sizes, and demographic trends. When someone asks about the market, you should be able to confidently roll those numbers off your tongue without hesitation.

To quickly become the local expert, choosing specific farm areas to focus on is crucial. Concentrate your marketing efforts and build your local knowledge in a handful of communities and neighborhoods.

Some places to do research include:

• Your local MLS: Check your hot sheet daily
• Zillow: Check out the Premier Agents who show up in your neighborhood
• Social media: Who is targeting their posts to your area?
• Direct mail: Check your mailbox for flyers and postcards
• Drive by: Drive through your farm areas to see who has signs in yards

Once you’ve identified your target areas, start conducting comparative market analyses (CMAs) to familiarize yourself with the properties and trends in those neighborhoods. That way, you’ll provide accurate insights to your clients and make informed decisions in your business.

Remember to research your competition. Understand what other agents working in the same area are doing, who they’re targeting, and identify any gaps in their services. This understanding will help you differentiate yourself from your competition and better serve your clients’ needs. In our real estate business planning template, I ask you to examine and record:

• Trends: Track key metrics, such as days on market and average sold prices, to stay informed about your specific market.
• Market opportunities: Identify situations where there are more buyers and sellers (or vice versa) in the marketplace so you can better advise your clients and find opportunities for them and your business.
• Market saturation: Recognize areas where there may be an oversupply of certain property types or price points, allowing you to adjust your strategy accordingly.
• Local competition: Analyze your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in their services to identify opportunities for differentiation and possibilities to create a more meaningful impact.

Remember, real estate is hyper-local. While national and state news can provide some context, your primary focus should be on specific needs and trends within your target areas and the clients you want to serve. By thoroughly analyzing your local real estate market, you’ll be well-equipped to make informed decisions, provide valuable insights to your clients, and ultimately build a successful and thriving business.

3. Identify Your Ideal Client

When creating your real estate business plan, it’s crucial to identify your ideal client. You can’t be everything to everyone, no matter how much you think you should. And trust me, you certainly don’t want to work with every single person who needs real estate advice. By focusing on your ideal client, you’ll create a targeted marketing message that effectively attracts the right people to your business—those you want to work with. 

Think of your target market as a broad group of people who might be interested in your services, while your ideal client is a specific person you are best suited to work with within that group. To create a detailed profile of your ideal client, ask yourself questions like:

• What age range do they fall into?
• What’s their family situation?
• What’s their income level and profession?
• What are their hobbies and interests?
• What motivates them to buy or sell a home?
• What are their biggest fears or concerns about the real estate process?

Answering these questions will help you create a clear picture of your ideal client, making it easier to tailor your marketing messages and services to meet their needs. Consider using this ideal client worksheet , which guides you through the process of creating a detailed client avatar. This will ensure you don’t miss any important aspects of their profile, and you can refer back to it as you develop your marketing plan .

By incorporating your ideal client into your overall business plan, you’ll be better equipped to make informed decisions about your marketing efforts, service offerings, and growth strategies. This clarity will help you build stronger relationships with your clients, stand out from the competition, and ultimately achieve your real estate business goals.

4. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

If you want to crush it in this business, you’ve got to think like an entrepreneur. One of the best tools in your arsenal is a SWOT analysis. It sounds ominous, but don’t worry, it’s actually pretty simple. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It’s all about taking a good, hard look at yourself and your business.

By conducting a SWOT analysis as part of your real estate business plan, you’ll have a clear picture of your current situation and your future goals. And don’t just do it once and forget about it—review and update it regularly to stay on top of your game.

5. Establish Your SMART Goals

If you want to make it big in real estate, setting goals is an absolute must . But not just any goals— I’m talking about SMART goals . SMART stands for Specific , Measurable , Achievable, Relevant , and Time-bound . It’s like a recipe for success, ensuring your goals are clear, realistic, and have a deadline.

Your SMART goals are an integral part of your overall business plan for real estate. They should be stepping stones to help you achieve your long-term vision and mission. So, analyze your SWOT analysis, ideal client, and market, and craft goals that will help you dominate your niche.

Example Smart Goal: Close 10 transactions in the next quarter.

Make sure to provide as many details as possible behind your goals. Don’t just say, “I want to sell more houses.” That’s too vague. In the example above, the goal is specific: “close 10 transactions.”

If you can’t measure your progress, how will you know if you’re crushing it or falling behind? Ensure your goals have numbers attached to track your success or see where you need to focus more energy. “Close 10 transactions” has a specific number, so you have a way to measure your progress.

I know you’ve got big dreams for your real estate business , but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Set goals that stretch you beyond your comfort zone but are still achievable. This way, you’ll gain confidence, build momentum, and push yourself to new heights. Closing 10 transactions in a quarter is a lofty goal, but it’s still achievable. Your goals should stretch you but still be within your reach.

Relevant goals are the ones that actually move the needle for your business. Sure, becoming the next TikTok sensation might be a lot of fun, but unless TikTok generates most of your clients, it won’t help you close more deals. Your goals should be laser-focused on the activities and milestones that will help you grow your real estate career. In the example above, the goal is specifically related to real estate. 

Deadlines are your friend. Without a timeline, your goals are just wishes. Give yourself a precise end date and work backward to create a plan of action. In the example, the deadline for achieving the goal is the end of the current quarter. If you don’t achieve the goal, you can evaluate where the shortfall was and reset for the next quarter.

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”

Tony Robbins

Remember, just like your SWOT analysis, your goals aren’t set in stone. Review and adjust them regularly to stay on track and adapt to business and market changes.

6. Create Your Financial Plan

Financial planning might not be your idea of a good time, but this is where your real estate business plan really comes together. Thanks to all the research and strategizing you’ve done, most of the heavy lifting is already done. Now, it’s just a matter of plugging in the numbers and ensuring everything adds up.

In this real estate business plan template section, you’ll want to account for all your operating expenses. That means everything from your marketing budget to your lead generation costs. Don’t forget about the little things (like printer ink, file folders, thank you cards, etc.)—they might seem small, but they can add up quickly. Some typical expenses to consider include:

• Marketing and advertising (business cards, website , social media ads )
• Lead generation ( online leads , referral fees, networking events )
• Office supplies and equipment (computer, printer, software subscriptions )
• Transportation (gas, car maintenance, parking)
• Professional development (training, courses, conferences )
• Dues and memberships (MLS fees, association dues)
• Insurance (errors and omissions, general liability)
• Taxes and licenses (business licenses, self-employment taxes)

Once you’ve figured out your expenses, it’s time to reverse-engineer the numbers and determine how many deals you need to close each month to cover your costs. If you’re just starting out and don’t have a track record to go off of, no worries! This planning period allows you to set a budget and create a roadmap for success.

Pro tip: Keep your personal and business finances separate. Never dip into your personal cash for business expenses. Not only will it make tax time a nightmare, but it’s way too easy to blow your budget without even realizing it.

If you’re evaluating your starting assets and realizing they don’t quite match your startup costs, don’t panic. This new insight is just a sign that you must return to the drawing board and tweak your strategy until the numbers line up. It might take some trial and error, but getting your financial plan right from the start is worth it.

7. Track Your Progress & Adjust as Needed

You’ve worked hard and created a killer real estate business plan, and you’re ready to take on the world. But remember, your business plan isn’t a one-and-done deal. It’s a living, breathing document that needs to evolve as your business grows and changes. That’s why it’s so important to track your progress and make adjustments along the way. 

Here are a few key things to keep in mind:

• Set regular check-ins: Schedule dedicated time to review your progress and see how you’re doing against your goals, whether weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
• Keep an eye on your KPIs: Your key performance indicators (KPIs) are the metrics that matter most to your business. Things like lead generation, conversion rates, and average sales price can give you a clear picture of your performance.
• Celebrate your wins: When you hit a milestone or crush a goal, take a moment to celebrate. Acknowledging your successes will keep you motivated and energized.
• Don’t be afraid to pivot: If something isn’t working, change course. Your real estate business plan should be flexible enough to accommodate new opportunities and shifting market conditions.
• Stay accountable: Find an accountability partner, join a mastermind group, or work with a coach to help you stay on track and overcome obstacles.

“It’s the small wins on the long journey that we need in order to keep our confidence, joy, and motivation alive.”

Brendon Burchard

Remember, your real estate business plan is your roadmap to success. But even the best-laid plans need to be adjusted from time to time. By tracking your progress, staying flexible, and keeping your eye on the prize, you’ll be well on your way to building the real estate business of your dreams.

How do I start a real estate business plan?

Use this step-by-step guide and the downloadable real estate business plan template to map your business goals, finances, and mission. Identify your ideal client so you can target your marketing strategy. Once you’ve completed all the business plan elements, put them into action and watch your real estate business grow.

Is starting a real estate business profitable?

In the most simple terms, absolutely yes! Real estate can be an extremely profitable business if it’s run properly. But you need to have a roadmap to follow to keep track of your spending vs income. It’s easy to lose track of expenses and overextend yourself when you don’t have a set plan.

How do I jump-start my real estate business?

One of the easiest ways to jump-start any business is to set clear goals for yourself. Use this guide and the downloadable template to ensure you have clear, concise, trackable goals to keep you on track.

How do I organize my real estate business?

Start by setting some SMART goals to give yourself a concrete idea of what you see as success. Then, make sure you’re using the right tools—customer relationship manager (CRM), website, digital document signing, digital forms, etc., and make sure you have them easily accessible. Try keeping most of your business running from inside your CRM. It’s much easier to keep everything organized if everything is in one place.

Now, you have a step-by-step guide to creating a real estate business plan that will take your career to the next level. Taking the extra time to map your path to success is an essential step in helping you achieve your goals. Spend the extra time—it’s worth it. Now, it’s time to do the work and make it happen. You’ve got this!

Have you created your real estate business plan? Did I miss any crucial steps? Let me know in the comments!

As a licensed real estate agent in Florida, Jodie built a successful real estate business by combining her real estate knowledge, copywriting, and digital marketing expertise.

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Real Estate Broker Business Plan PDF Example

• June 17, 2024
• Business Plan

Creating a comprehensive business plan is crucial for launching and running a successful real estate broker. This plan serves as your roadmap, detailing your vision, operational strategies, and financial plan. It helps establish your real estate broker’s identity, navigate the competitive market, and secure funding for growth.

This article not only breaks down the critical components of a real estate broker business plan, but also provides an example of a business plan to help you craft your own.

Whether you’re an experienced entrepreneur or new to the real estate industry, this guide, complete with a business plan example, lays the groundwork for turning your real estate broker business concept into reality. Let’s dive in!

Our real estate broker business plan is structured to cover all essential aspects needed for a comprehensive strategy. It outlines the business’s operations, marketing strategy , market environment, competitors, management team, and financial forecasts.

• Executive Summary : Offers an overview of your real estate broker business’s concept, market analysis , management, and financial strategy.
• Facility & Location: Describes the business’s operational base, amenities, and why its location is appealing to potential clients.
• Services & Rates: Lists the services provided by your real estate broker business, including types of brokerage services offered and pricing structure.
• Key Stats: Shares industry size , growth trends, and relevant statistics for the real estate brokerage market.
• Key Trends: Highlights recent trends affecting the real estate sector.
• Key Competitors : Analyzes main competitors nearby and how your business differs from them.
• SWOT : Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis.
• Marketing Plan : Strategies for attracting and retaining customers.
• Timeline : Key milestones and objectives from start-up through the first year of operation.
• Management: Information on who manages the real estate broker business and their roles.
• Financial Plan: Projects the business’s 5-year financial performance, including revenue, profits, and expected expenses.

Real Estate Broker Business Plan

Fully editable 30+ slides Powerpoint presentation business plan template.

Download an expert-built 30+ slides Powerpoint business plan template

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary introduces your real estate brokerage’s business plan, offering a concise overview of your brokerage and its services. It should detail your market positioning, the range of real estate services you offer, its location, size, and an outline of day-to-day operations.

This section should also explore how your real estate brokerage will integrate into the local market, including the number of direct competitors within the area, identifying who they are, along with your brokerage’s unique selling points that differentiate it from these competitors.

Furthermore, you should include information about the management and co-founding team, detailing their roles and contributions to the brokerage’s success. Additionally, a summary of your financial projections, including revenue and profits over the next five years, should be presented here to provide a clear picture of your brokerage’s financial plan.

Make sure to cover here _ Business Overview _ Market Overview _ Management Team _ Financial Plan

Business Overview

For a Real estate broker, the Business Overview section can be concisely divided into 2 main slides:

Facility & Location

Briefly describe the brokerage’s office environment, emphasizing its design, comfort, and the overall atmosphere that welcomes clients. Mention the office location, highlighting its accessibility and the convenience it offers to clients, such as proximity to major business districts, shopping centers, or ease of parking. Explain why this location is advantageous in attracting your target clientele.

Services & Rates

Detail the range of real estate services offered, from residential and commercial property sales to property management , leasing, and real estate consulting. Outline your pricing strategy , ensuring it reflects the quality of services provided and matches the market you’re targeting. Highlight any packages, commission structures, or special deals that provide added value to your clients, encouraging repeat business and customer loyalty.

Make sure to cover here _ Facility & Location _ Services & Rates

Market Overview

Industry size & growth.

In the Market Overview of your real estate brokerage business plan, start by examining the size of the real estate industry and its growth potential. This analysis is crucial for understanding the market’s scope and identifying expansion opportunities.

Key Market Trends

Proceed to discuss recent market trends , such as the increasing consumer interest in smart home technology, sustainable and energy-efficient properties, and virtual property tours. For example, highlight the demand for services that cater to first-time homebuyers, luxury property seekers, and commercial real estate investors. Emphasize the growing importance of online listings and digital marketing strategies in attracting and engaging potential clients.

Key Competitors

Then, consider the competitive landscape, which includes a range of real estate firms from large national chains to local independent brokers, as well as online real estate platforms. For example, emphasize what makes your brokerage distinctive, whether it’s through exceptional customer service, a comprehensive range of services, or specialization in certain property types or market segments. This section will help articulate the demand for real estate services, the competitive environment, and how your brokerage is positioned to thrive within this dynamic market.

Make sure to cover here _ Industry size & growth _ Key competitors _ Key market trends

Dive deeper into Key competitors

First, conduct a SWOT analysis for the real estate broker , highlighting Strengths (such as experienced agents and a comprehensive range of services), Weaknesses (including high operational costs or strong competition), Opportunities (for example, an increasing demand for sustainable properties), and Threats (such as economic downturns that may decrease consumer spending on real estate).

Marketing Plan

Next, develop a marketing strategy that outlines how to attract and retain clients through targeted advertising, promotional discounts, engaging social media presence, and community involvement.

Finally, create a detailed timeline that outlines critical milestones for the real estate brokerage’s launch, marketing efforts, client base growth, and expansion objectives, ensuring the business moves forward with clear direction and purpose.

Make sure to cover here _ SWOT _ Marketing Plan _ Timeline

Dive deeper into SWOT

Dive deeper into Marketing Plan

The Management section focuses on the optician business’s management and their direct roles in daily operations and strategic direction. This part is crucial for understanding who is responsible for making key decisions and driving the real estate broker toward its financial and operational goals.

For your real estate broker business plan, list the core team members, their specific responsibilities, and how their expertise supports the business.

Financial Plan

The Financial Plan section is a comprehensive analysis of your financial projections for revenue, expenses, and profitability. It lays out your real estate broker’s approach to securing funding, managing cash flow, and achieving breakeven.

This section typically includes detailed forecasts for the first 5 years of operation, highlighting expected revenue, operating costs and capital expenditures.

For your real estate broker business plan, provide a snapshot of your financial statement (profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow statement), as well as your key assumptions (e.g. number of customers and prices, expenses, etc.).

Make sure to cover here _ Profit and Loss _ Cash Flow Statement _ Balance Sheet _ Use of Funds

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Real Estate Investing & Rental Management | How To

How to Write a Real Estate Investment Business Plan (+ Free Template)

Published September 22, 2023

Published Sep 22, 2023

REVIEWED BY: Gina Baker

WRITTEN BY: Jealie Dacanay

This article is part of a larger series on Investing in Real Estate .

• 1 Write Your Mission & Vision Statement
• 2 Conduct a SWOT Analysis
• 3 Choose a Real Estate Business Investing Model
• 4 Set Specific & Measurable Goals
• 5 Write a Company Summary
• 6 Determine Your Financial Plan
• 7 Perform a Rental Market Analysis
• 8 Create a Marketing Plan
• 9 Build a Team & Implement Systems
• 10 Have an Exit Strategy
• 11 Bottom Line

A real estate investment business plan is a guide with actionable steps for determining how you’ll operate your real estate investing business. It also indicates how you’ll measure your business’ success. The plan outlines your mission and vision statement, lets you conduct a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, and sets goals in place. It’s similar to a business plan for any business, but the objectives are geared toward how you will manage the business, grow your investment, and secure funding.

We’ve created a free real estate investment business plan template for you to download and use as a guide as you read through the article and learn how to write a business plan for real estate investment:

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Free Real Estate Investment Business Plan Template

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1. write your mission & vision statement.

Every real estate investment business plan should begin with a concrete mission statement and vision. A mission statement declares actions and strategies the organization will use—serving as its North Star in achieving its business or investment objectives. A strong mission statement directs a real estate business, keeps teams accountable, inspires customers, and helps you measure success.

Before you compose your mission statement, you need to think about the following questions to do it effectively:

• What exactly is our business? The answer should encompass the essential functions of your real estate organization.
• How are we doing it? The response must explain your real estate goals and methods based on your core principles.
• Who are we doing it for? The response explains who your primary market is.
• What are our guiding principles? The “why” for your real estate company’s existence.

Mission statement example (Source: Oak Tree Capital )

The example above provides the mission statement of Oak Tree Capital. As a real estate investment business, it’s clear what its ultimate business objective is and how it will approach investing with integrity to maximize profit. Essentially, the investment company will drive monetary results—while maintaining its moral principles.

On the other hand, vision statements differ slightly from mission statements. They’re a bit more inspirational and provide some direction for future planning and execution of business investment strategies. Vision statements touch on a company’s desires and purpose beyond day-to-day operational activity. A vision statement outlines what the business desires to be once its mission statement is achieved.

For more mission statement examples, read our 16 Small Business Mission Statement Examples & Why They Inspire article and download our free mission statement template to get started.

If you want to write a vision statement that is truly aspirational and motivating, you should include your significant stakeholders as well as words that describe your products, services, values, initiatives, and goals. It would be best if you also answer the following questions:

• What is the primary goal of your organization?
• What are the key strengths of your business?
• What are the core values of your company?
• How do you aim to change the world as a business?
• What kind of global influence do you want your business to have?
• What needs and wants does your company have?
• How would the world be different if our organization achieved its goals?

In the example below from Aguila Real Estate, it hopes to be the preferred real estate company in its market.

Example of a vision statement (Source: Aguila Real Estate )

To make it easier, download our free template and follow our steps to create a vision statement for your small business. Take a look also at our 12 Inspiring Vision Statement Examples for Small Businesses in 2023 article to better understand how to create an impactful vision statement.

2. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis section of your real estate investing business plan template helps identify a business’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This tool enables real estate investors to identify internal areas of improvement within their business through their strengths and weaknesses.

The opportunities and threats can assist with motivating a team to take actions that keep them ahead of an ever-changing real estate landscape. For a real estate business investor, the SWOT analysis is aimed at helping grow and protect investments over time.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Specifically for real estate investing, strengths and weaknesses correlate with the investment properties’ success and touch on items that will drive investment growth. The strengths can be the property’s location, condition, available amenities, and decreased vacancy. All of these items contribute to the success of a property.

On the contrary, the weaknesses include small unit sizes, excessive expenditures (finances to repair, upgrade, properties to acquire), low rents, and low cap rates. These weaknesses indicate less money is being collected and a lower overall return on investment (ROI). They are all factors that limit cash flow into the business and are internal factors that an investor can change.

See below for an example of strengths and weaknesses that could be included in a SWOT analysis:

Opportunities & Threats

Opportunities and threats are external factors that can affect an investment business. You don’t have control over these items, but you can maneuver your business to take advantage of the opportunities or mitigate any long-term effects of external threats. Opportunities relating to investment properties can be receiving certification with a city as a preferred development or having excess equity.

However, threats to an investment property do not need to be particularly connected to the property itself. They can be factors that affect your overall business. For example, interest rates may be high, which cuts your profits if you obtain a mortgage during that time frame.

An example of possible opportunities and threats for an investment business could be:

After creating your SWOT analysis, an investor can use these factors to develop business goals to support your strengths and opportunities while implementing change to combat the weaknesses and threats you anticipate. It also helps investors prioritize what items need to be addressed to succeed. These factors in a SWOT can change as the business grows, so don’t forget to revisit this portion and continuously reevaluate your SWOT.

3. Choose a Real Estate Business Investing Model

The core of real estate investing is to purchase and sell properties for a profit. How to make that profit is a factor in identifying your investment model. Different investing models are beneficial to an investor at different times.

For example, when interest rates are low, you may consider selling your property altogether. When interest rates are high and it is more difficult for people to obtain a mortgage, you may choose to rent out your properties instead. Sometimes, you must try a few models to see what works best for your business, given your area of expertise.

We’ve identified some investment business models to consider:

• Buy and hold: This strategy mainly involves renting out the property and earning regular rental income. This is also considered the BRRRR method : buy, rehab, rent, refinance, and repeat until you have increased your portfolio.
• Flipping properties : Flipping a property entails purchasing, adding value, and selling it higher than the investment costs. Many investors have a set profitability number they would like to hit but should consider market fluctuations on what they can realistically receive during the sale. Read our article on how to find houses to flip for more information.
• Owner-occupied: Investors can live in the property while renting out extra units to reduce their housing costs and have rental income coming in simultaneously. This model is best if you own multifamily units, especially duplexes, triplexes, or fourplexes . It’s also a great way to understand the complexities of being a landlord. You can transition your unit to another renter when you want to move.
• Turnkey: Buying a turnkey property is the best option for investors who wish to enter the real estate market without having to deal with renovations or tenant management. It’s a practical way for seasoned investors to diversify their portfolios with fewer time commitments.

Investors don’t have to stick to one model, and they can have a few of these investment models within their portfolio, depending on how much effort they would like to put into each property. Before choosing an investment model, consider which will help you meet your investing goals most efficiently.

Read our Investing in Real Estate: The 14-Tip Guide for Beginners article to learn how real estate investment works and other investing business models. Also, if you’re new to real estate investing and are looking for foundational knowledge to get started or seeking information about the best online courses for real estate investing, look at our The 13 Best Real Estate Investing Courses Online 2023 article.

4. Set Specific & Measurable Goals

The next step to completing a real estate investment business plan for real estate investing is to set SMART goals. SMART is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Creating goals that contain all of the criteria of SMART goals results in extremely specific goals, provides focus, and sets an investor up for achieving the goals. The process of creating these goals takes some experience and continued practice.

An investor’s goals can consist of small short-term goals and more monumental long-term goals. Whether big or small, ideal goals will propel your business forward. For example, your end goal could be having a specific number of properties in your portfolio or setting a particular return on investment (ROI) you want to achieve annually.

Remember that your SMART goals don’t always have to be property-related just because you’re an investor. They can be goals that help you improve your networking or public speaking skills that can also add to a growing business.

Example of improving goals with SMART in mind:

Begin creating SMART goals with an initial goal. Then, take that initial goal and break it down into the different SMART components. SMART goals leave no room for error or confusion. The specific, measurable, and time-bound criteria identify the exact components for success.

However, the relevant and achievable parts of the goal require a little extra work to identify. The relevancy should align with your company’s mission, and extra research must be performed to ensure the goal is attainable.

Initial goal: Receive a 5% return on investment from the property

Smart goal:

• Specific: I want to achieve a 5% return on the 99 Park Place property.
• Measurable: The goal is to sell it for greater than or equal to $499,000.
• Achievable: The current market value for a two-bedroom in Chicago is selling for $500,000 and growing by 1% yearly.
• Relevant: I aim to meet my overall portfolio returns by 20% annually.
• Time-bound: I want to offload this property in the next three years.

5. Write a Company Summary

The company summary section of a business plan for investors is a high-level overview, giving insight into your business, its services, goals, and mission, and how you differentiate yourself from your competition. Other items that can be included in this overview are business legal structure, business location, and business goals. The company summary is beneficial if you want to involve outside investors or partners in your business.

​​Example company profile from Choueri Real Estate

A company summary is customizable to your target audience. If you’re using this section to recruit high-level executives to your team, center it around business operations and corporate culture. However, if you’re looking to target funding and develop investor relationships for a new project, then you should include investor-specific topics relating to profitability, investment strategy, and company business structure.

Partners and outside investors will want to consider your company’s specific legal business structure to know what types of liabilities are at hand. Legal business structure determines how taxes are charged and paid and what legal entity owns the assets. This information helps determine how the liabilities are separated from personal assets. For example, if a tenant wants to seek legal damages against the landlord and the property is owned by an LLC, personal assets like your personal home will not be at risk.

6. Determine Your Financial Plan

The most essential part of creating a real estate investing business is the financial aspect since much of the business involves purchasing, managing, and selling real estate. To buy real estate initially, you’ll have to determine where funding will come from. Funding can come from your personal assets, a line of credit, or external investors.

A few options are available to real estate investors when obtaining a loan to purchase properties. The lending options available to most real estate investors include the following:

• Mortgage: This is one of the most common means of obtaining financing. A financial institution will provide money based on a borrower’s credit score and ability to repay the loan.
• Federal Housing Authority (FHA) loans : This loan is secured by the FHA to assist with getting you a low down payment or lower closing costs, and sometimes easily obtain credit. There are some restrictions to qualify for this loan—but it could be suitable for newer investors who want to begin investing starting with their primary home.
• Home equity line of credit (HELOC) : If you currently have property, obtain a HELOC by using your current property to secure the line of credit and borrow against the equity in your property. As you repay the loan, your available balance on the line of credit gets replenished.
• Private lenders : These are lenders who are not financial institutions. These individual lenders typically have fewer restrictions than traditional lenders and will lend money to individuals who can grow their investments.
• Hard-money loans : This loan requires a hard asset to be leveraged for money. For example, you can put up the home you want to purchase as the asset for cash upfront, and the hard-money loan will be paid back once the home is sold or other funding is secured. This is great for short-term deals due to quick approval and little upfront money.

After funding is obtained to purchase property, financial projections help investors understand their financial standing. These projections can tell you potential income, profits, and when you may need additional funding in the future. Similar to lending options, these calculations are specific to your investing model. If you’re not planning to rent out the property, then calculations like gross rent multiplier are not applicable.

For more information on what is needed to obtain financing, read our article Investment Property Financing & Requirements .

Additional Investment Calculations

In a rental property business plan, it’s important to use a rental property calculator to determine a property’s potential return on investment. The calculator considers various factors, such as purchase price, operating expenses, monthly income, or vacancy rates, to determine whether a property is a good investment.

Click on the tabs below for the other important calculations all investors should be aware of when purchasing and managing rental properties :

• Gross Operating Income
• Gross Rent Multiplier
• Vacancy Rate

The gross operating income (GOI) calculates the amount of rent and income received from a property minus any vacancy. It doesn’t take into account other expenses. It tells an investor how much income they’ll make after some assumed losses with vacancy.

GOI = Total rent + Other income – Vacancy losses

The capitalization (cap) rate calculates the return on investment (ROI) of a property. This equation is used to compare the return of one building to another. The higher the cap rate, the better since the purchase price is low.

Cap Rate = Net operating income / Purchase price

The gross rent multiplier (GRM) is a factor that helps determine a property’s potential profitability. It can be used to compare perspective buildings to determine which one is the better deal.

GRM = Property price / Gross annual income

The vacancy rate calculates the vacancy percentage of all your investment properties during a specific period. Percentage helps an investor determine how their property performs given current market conditions. If you have a high vacancy rate, you must determine the cause. Perhaps your asking rents are too high for the current housing market.

Vacancy Rate Formula = # of Vacant Units x 100 / Total # of Units

Cash flow is the movement of money in and out of your business, also known as net operating income. In an ideal scenario, investors will bring in more income than expenses, thus showing profit and a positive cash flow. Positive cash flow allows investors to decide how to use that profit. They can invest it in growing their portfolio or increasing their cash reserves for unexpected expenses.

Cash Flow = Gross rental income – Total expenses

Investors can use their current cash flow to forecast future cash flows, which will give you an idea of how much profit you will see over a specific period. Use past cash flow information to determine if there are any trends. For example, during the summer, your water expenses increase, or possibly every few months, you see an increase in property repairs. Consider these trends when estimating future cash flows and compare actual numbers to determine if your forecasting is accurate.

Use the template below to forecast future cash flow for six months and determine how much cash flow reserves you will have:

Cash Flow Template

💡 Quick tip:

In addition to the template, investing in property management software like TenantCloud will set you up for success. The free plan from TenantCloud will help you list apartments, collect rent payments, and screen applicants to maximize profits and minimize vacancies.

7. Perform a Rental Market Analysis

While determining what properties to purchase, investors should perform a rental market analysis (RMA) to gauge the investment potential of a rental property. The RMA consists of running comparables against current units on the market and collecting data that may affect your rental rate to understand if the rental property in question is a solid long-term investment. The analysis helps determine the average rental rate and future rent if you want to make any property upgrades.

Investors can use resources like Zillow to pull comparable property information and gather information on unit layout, building amenities, rental concessions offered, or listing prices. Once the information is gathered, the spreadsheet itemizes the average, median, highest, and lowest rent. When such information is available, it also provides an average price per square foot compared to the subject property. With this information, investors can decide whether the subject property is worth the investment.

Read our 10 Best States to Invest in Real Estate (& 5 Worst) in 2023 article to better understand which states yield a positive cash flow, build equity, and have long-term profitability.

8. Create a Marketing Plan

Once you determine which property to invest in, investors should identify a marketing plan to list the vacant units. Some investors offload the marketing and advertising to real estate agents and brokerages, which will also collect a fee for renting out the property. Refer to some of the best real estate marketing materials to get started, or use our free real estate marketing plan template to lay out your objectives and tactics.

A real estate marketing plan should include your goals, budget, target market, competitors, feasible marketing strategies, and unique selling offers. In addition, it’s crucial to balance your strategy and split your potential marketing plans into categories, like print materials, online ads, email, and social media, so that you can be very specific with your goals and metrics.

Here are some of the real estate marketing mediums to include as you set your marketing goals:

• Real estate website and landing pages
• Email marketing
• SMS and text message marketing
• Real estate ads
• Social media marketing
• Print marketing materials
• Real estate signs

Download our marketing plan template by visiting our article Free Real Estate Marketing Plan Template & Strategy Guide .

9. Build a Team & Implement Systems

As a new investor, you may be unable to hire an entire team of employees to help perform research, run analysis, property management , and accounting duties. It is best to have a list of vendors you can rely on to assist you with purchasing, rehabilitating, and buying or selling your investment properties. Find vendors you trust so you can free yourself from having to micromanage them and know they have your best interest and the interest of your investments in mind.

Here are a few people you want to include on your team:

• Contractors
• Electricians
• Property managers
• Accountants

You should also utilize real estate investing apps and property intelligence software like Baselane that relieve you of manually performing daily duties to keep your investments profitable.

Automated rent collection feature (Source: Baselane )

Baselane is an all-in-one solution—from banking to rent collection, bookkeeping, reporting, and analytics. This software will help you efficiently manage your portfolio and eliminate the need for manual tasks. Learn more about how Baselane can make you a better property owner.

Visit Baselane

If you’re looking for more tools to help you get started, improve your portfolio management, and streamline your operations, read our 6 Best Real Estate Software for Investors 2023 article. We listed the six best software tools available for real estate investing based on affordability, customer reviews, features, and support to assist you in finding the best software that suits your needs.

10. Have an Exit Strategy

Since an investor’s money is tied up in the properties they own until they choose to sell, deciding when to sell or liquidate to get access to your money is part of an investor’s overall real estate exit strategy. The exit strategy for a real estate investment business is a plan for when an investor would like to remove themself from a deal or the business altogether. It helps weigh the different scenarios to minimize business risks and maximize the total return on investments.

A few exit strategy examples are:

The factors that an investor should consider when devising an exit strategy are minimizing financial loss, recouping as much of their original investment as possible, and avoiding any unseen fees that will cut into profits like tax consequences. An investor’s plan should always be to grow their original investment, but unforeseen circumstances may occur that will require you to plan on when to cut your losses as well.

Bottom Line

Before launching a successful real estate investment business, you must have an efficient business plan, aligning your strategies with your business objectives. Our real estate investment business plan template can help get you started. These plans act as a roadmap so you can focus on the steps required to grow your business. Business plans evolve, so continuously revisit and improve your strategies. There is no right or wrong way to write a real estate investor business plan as long as it is used to achieve your goals.

About the Author

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Jealie Dacanay

Jealie is a staff writer expert focusing on real estate education, lead generation, marketing, and investing. She has always seen writing as an opportunity to apply her knowledge and express her ideas. Over the years and through her internship at a real estate developer in the Philippines, Camella, she developed and discovered essential skills for producing high-quality online content.

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Judge Dismisses Classified Documents Case Against Trump

Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that the entire case should be thrown out because the appointment of the special counsel who brought the case, Jack Smith, had violated the Constitution. He indicated he planned to appeal.

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Alan Feuer covers the federal cases against former President Donald J. Trump.

Judge dismisses classified documents case against Trump.

The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case threw out all of the charges against him on Monday, ruling that Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed the indictment, had been given his job in violation of the Constitution.

In a stunning decision delivered on the first day of the Republican National Convention, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, found that Mr. Smith’s appointment as special counsel was improper because it was not based on a specific federal statute and because he had not been named to the post by the president or confirmed by the Senate.

She also found that Mr. Smith had been improperly funded by the Treasury Department.

The ruling by Judge Cannon, who was put on the bench by Mr. Trump in his final year in office, flew in the face of previous court decisions reaching back to the Watergate era that upheld the legality of the ways in which independent prosecutors have been put into their posts.

It handed Mr. Trump a major legal victory two days after he was wounded in a shooting at a campaign rally and at the very onset of the political pageant where he is set to formally become his party’s presidential nominee.

The classified documents case, which is being heard in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., once appeared to be the most straightforward of the four criminal prosecutions that Mr. Trump has faced. He was charged last year with illegally holding on to classified national security materials after leaving office and then obstructing government efforts to retrieve them along with two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos DeOliveira.

The charges against Mr. Nauta and Mr. DeOliveira were also tossed out. Mr. Smith’s office said he intended to appeal.

“The dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the attorney general is statutorily authorized to appoint a special counsel,” said Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel. “The Justice Department has authorized the special counsel to appeal the court’s order.”

But even if the appeal succeeds, the case still might never go in front of a jury.

It has long been clear that the documents case would not go to trial before the election in November, largely because of the glacial pace with which Judge Cannon has handled it. Should Mr. Trump be elected president again, he could simply have his Justice Department dismiss the case if it is reinstated on appeal — and even if he does not, longstanding Justice Department policy forbids prosecuting a sitting president.

But Judge Cannon’s decision to dismiss the indictment in its entirety at such a consequential moment in Mr. Trump’s campaign was nonetheless a remarkable development for the former president’s legal and political future, giving him further ammunition to portray the prosecution as an effort by President Biden and his allies to undercut him in the election.

In a statement on his social media platform, Mr. Trump said the decision dismissed what he described as a “Lawless Indictment.”

He wrote that the decision should be followed “quickly by the dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts,” referring to the three other criminal indictments filed against him last year, as well as civil cases he has faced.

In her 93-page order — by far the longest she has written in more than a year of handling the documents case — Judge Cannon offered an in-depth look at her legal reasons for tossing out the charges. At the heart of her thinking was an assertion that no specific federal statute authorized the appointment of special counsels like Mr. Smith or gave them the “prosecutorial power” that they have wielded for 25 years.

Special counsels are currently governed by Justice Department regulations traditionally believed to have been based on a series of federal laws laying out the structure of the department and the powers of the attorney general. That has been the practice since 1999 when Congress allowed the Independent Counsel Act, which authorized and governed a different type of independent prosecutor, to lapse in the wake of the Whitewater investigation into President Bill Clinton.

But Judge Cannon took a wrecking ball to all of that, ruling that none of the statutes governing the conduct of attorneys general actually gave them the authority to appoint special prosecutors like Mr. Smith.

Moreover, she declared that allowing special counsels to operate under the control of the attorney general was a violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers. And she invited Congress to pass a new law if legislators wanted Mr. Smith to keep pursuing the case against Mr. Trump.

“If the political branches wish to grant the attorney general power to appoint Special Counsel Smith to investigate and prosecute this action with the full powers of a United States Attorney,” she wrote, “there is a valid means by which to do so.”

When the Independent Counsel Act was permitted to expire and was replaced by internal Justice Department regulations, there was a consensus in Washington that special prosecutors needed to be independent enough to handle sensitive political investigations without undue influence from powerful politicians, but not so independent that they would run amok and abuse their power.

In her ruling, Judge Cannon clearly sided with those who feared that special counsels like Mr. Smith were unchecked by sufficient accountability to the attorney general.

“The special counsel regulations impose almost no supervision or direction over the special counsel and give him broad power to render final decisions on behalf of the United States,” she wrote.

In their initial motion concerning Mr. Smith’s appointment, Mr. Trump’s lawyers had asked Judge Cannon to consider the related issue of whether the special counsel’s office had been improperly funded in violation of the Constitution’s appropriations clause.

The judge appeared to agree with that argument as well, writing that Mr. Smith had been “drawing funds from the Treasury without statutory authorization” and that “there is good reason to believe that the Appropriation Clause violation serves as a separate, independent basis to dismiss.”

Her decision to dismiss the case came two weeks after Justice Clarence Thomas expressed his own doubts about how Mr. Smith got his job in a brief concurrence to the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling granting Mr. Trump broad immunity against criminal prosecution.

The concurrence was unusual given that the question of Mr. Smith’s appointment was not under consideration by the court at the time and in fact was never raised in the case underlying the immunity ruling. That ruling stemmed from Mr. Trump’s other federal indictment — the one in Washington in which he stands accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

Justice Thomas never mentioned Judge Cannon or the classified documents case in his concurrence. But he did recommend that “lower courts” look into the “essential questions concerning the special counsel’s appointment.” Last month, Judge Cannon did precisely that, holding two days of hearings in Fort Pierce on the issue of Mr. Smith’s appointment and funding.

The hearings were unusual, not the least because they covered in great detail what seemed to be settled legal ground.

Reaching back to the early 1970s, federal courts have repeatedly rejected efforts to question the legality of independent prosecutors like Mr. Smith. Those have included the Supreme Court upholding the appointment of Leon Jaworski, one of the special prosecutors who investigated the Watergate scandal, in a decision that was largely focused on the issue of President Richard M. Nixon’s claims of executive privilege.

Judges have also tossed out efforts to invalidate the work of special counsels like Robert S. Mueller III, who examined connections between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, and David C. Weiss, who has brought two criminal cases against Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son.

In her ruling, however, Judge Cannon said that it was a “mistaken premise” to view Mr. Smith as “just another in a long line of ‘special attorneys’ of similar ilk.” She asserted that he was different from his predecessors for having come to the job as a private citizen and because he operated with “very little oversight or supervision.”

“In the end, there does appear to be a ‘tradition’ of appointing special-attorney-like figures in moments of political scandal throughout the country’s history,” she wrote. “But very few, if any, of these figures actually resemble the position of Special Counsel Smith."

The decision to kill the classified documents case, and the hearing that preceded it, were hardly the first unorthodox moves Judge Cannon has made since she first took control of the case last June.

Over and over, she has issued rulings and taken procedural steps that have prompted second-guessing and criticism among legal scholars, many of whom have pointed out that she has been on the bench for less than four years and has limited experience in overseeing criminal trials.

She has often shown a willingness to grant a serious audience to some of Mr. Trump’s most far-fetched defense claims. And her penchant for scheduling hearings to consider questions that many federal judges would have dealt with on the merits of written filings alone has played into Mr. Trump’s strategy of seeking to delay the case for as long as possible.

Her decision about Mr. Smith’s appointment was also striking for the way in which it seemed to shut down any efforts by prosecutors to fight it outside of an appeal to a higher court.

Judge Cannon, for instance, appeared to foreclose the idea of Mr. Smith asking to file additional papers or to request that the issue be reheard. She noted that prosecutors had already been afforded a “full and fair opportunity to brief the matter.”

And she ended her ruling in a way that left no doubt about her intentions to end the prosecution.

“The Clerk is directed to CLOSE this case,” she wrote. “Any scheduled hearings are CANCELED. Any pending motions are DENIED AS MOOT, and any pending deadlines are TERMINATED.”

But she will not have the final word. Mr. Smith’s appeal will go initially to the 11th Circuit in Atlanta.

A three-judge panel from that court handed Judge Cannon a stern rebuke nearly two years ago, reversing a decision she made that favored Mr. Trump shortly after the F.B.I. searched Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida.

What is the appointments clause of the Constitution?

The ruling on Monday dismissing the classified documents case against former President Donald J. Trump cited a relatively obscure sentence in the Constitution concerning the appointment of officials by the executive branch.

The section, called the appointments clause, says that the president and the leaders of federal government departments can appoint certain officials, called inferior officers, without the consent of the Senate — if Congress has offered the executive branch such appointment powers through a law. Special counsels have been considered to be inferior officers. They have the same powers as a U.S. attorney, which is a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed position.

Judge Aileen M. Cannon of the Southern District of Florida found that no corresponding law existed to authorize the Justice Department’s appointment of the special counsel in the documents case, Jack Smith.

She wrote that the appointment of Mr. Smith by President Biden’s attorney general “effectively usurps” a power vested in Congress.

Judge Cannon, who was elevated to the federal bench by Mr. Trump in 2020, said Mr. Smith’s appointment required either a confirmation by federal lawmakers or the enactment of a broader law giving the Justice Department the power to make such an appointment.

In issuing her ruling, the judge defied a long history of attorneys general appointing independent counsels.

The Supreme Court has consistently acted as though special prosecutors are legally appointed, said Josh Chafetz, a law professor at Georgetown University . “This is a really idiosyncratic view that Cannon has,” he said.

In a 1974 Supreme Court decision upholding a subpoena from the special prosecutor in the Watergate inquiry, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger wrote that “Congress has vested in the Attorney General the power to conduct the criminal litigation of the United States Government.”

But Judge Cannon held that the decision did not support the appointment of Mr. Smith, writing that the Supreme Court had “assumed without deciding” that the attorney general had the power to appoint the Watergate case special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski.

In appointing Mr. Smith, the Justice Department had cited sections of the federal legal code that it said authorized the creation of the special counsel. But Judge Cannon found that those sections did not authorize the appointment.

Professor Chafetz said the ruling could be seen as less a constitutional opinion than a statutory one, because it hinged in part on Judge Cannon’s analysis of sections of the statutory code.

“Everybody agrees that there needs to be a statutory authority to appoint Smith,” he said. “The question is just whether there is that statutory authority.”

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the office of the special counsel, said the office planned to appeal the ruling.

“The dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue,” Mr. Carr said in a statement.

Laurence H. Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard, said he thought the decision would “most likely” be reversed, arguing in an interview that sections of the statutory code “clearly” empower the attorney general to appoint a special counsel.

But he added that the ruling would have sweeping implications “unless it is reversed.”

Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.

Read the Ruling That Dismisses the Documents Case Against Trump

Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that the classified documents case against former president Donald J. Trump should be thrown out because the appointment of the special counsel violated the Constitution.

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Eileen Sullivan

A spokesman for the Office of the Special Counsel, Peter Carr, issued a statement on Judge Cannon’s decision and the special counsel plans to appeal it: “The dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorized to appoint a Special Counsel. The Justice Department has authorized the Special Counsel to appeal the court’s order.”

Alan Feuer and Eileen Sullivan

Alan Feuer and Eileen Sullivan have regularly covered the proceedings in Judge Cannon’s courtroom.

Dismissal brings new scrutiny to judge with a history of unorthodox decisions.

Even before her bombshell decision on Monday to dismiss former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case, Judge Aileen M. Cannon had made any number of unorthodox rulings.

In fact, since Judge Cannon took control of the case in June 2023 , many of her decisions have been so outside the norm that they have fueled intense criticism of her legal acumen, stoked questions about favoritism toward Mr. Trump and slowed the documents case sufficiently that it would not come to trial before Election Day.

Still, almost no one, including some defense lawyers working on the case, expected Judge Cannon to throw out the charges against Mr. Trump by ruling that Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed the indictment, had been unconstitutionally appointed to his job — especially on the first day of the Republican National Convention.

The ruling upended 25 years of Justice Department procedure for naming and governing special counsels and called into question decisions by previous courts reaching back to the Watergate era.

“The very definition of an activist judge, she has single-handedly upended three decades of established law historically used fairly and in a bipartisan manner,” said Joëlle Anne Moreno, a law professor at Florida International University.

From the moment that Judge Cannon was assigned to the case, there were questions about her ability to handle it. She took control of one of the most significant prosecutions in American history, rife with legal and political complexities, even though she had been a judge for less than four years and had extremely limited experience in overseeing criminal trials.

On top of all that, the main defendant was the president who had nominated her to the federal bench.

Her colleagues in the Southern District of Florida were concerned enough about her stewardship of the case that not just one, but two of them approached her early in her tenure and asked her to consider stepping back and handing off the matter to another federal judge.

One of the jurists — the chief judge of the district — suggested it would be inappropriate for Judge Cannon to continue on the case because of a ruling she had made in Mr. Trump’s favor in a related civil case after the F.B.I. had searched Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s private club and residence in Florida, in August 2022.

In a move that drew national scrutiny and criticism, Judge Cannon intervened in the civil case and barred the Justice Department from using any of the documents that agents seized from Mar-a-Lago in their inquiry until an independent arbiter had sorted through them for any that were privileged.

That decision was quickly reversed in a stinging ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, which said she never had legal authority to get involved in the first place.

Over and over, throughout her handling of the documents case in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., Judge Cannon has made similarly unusual decisions, often showing a willingness to grant a serious audience to some of the former president’s most far-fetched defense claims.

She has also repeatedly scheduled hearings in court to debate issues that many federal judges would have dealt with on the merits of written filings alone. And that has made it all but certain that the case will not reach a jury until well after the election in November — one of Mr. Trump’s overarching legal and political objectives.

Many legal experts questioned Judge Cannon’s decision to hold a hearing last month on the issue of Mr. Smith’s appointment, arguing that several courts reaching back to the Watergate era had already upheld the legality of independent prosecutors.

The hearing was even odder, the experts pointed out, because the judge allowed outside parties who had filed friend-of-the-court briefs to address her directly for up to 30 minutes — a practice that rarely takes place at the trial level and is more common in appellate-level courts like the Supreme Court.

Entertaining direct arguments from these outside parties was a signal that she was taking Mr. Trump’s motion to dismiss on the appointments question seriously, Joel S. Johnson, an associate professor at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, said last month before the hearing.

Judge Cannon has her defenders. She approached the question of the constitutionality of the special counsel appointment with the thorough preparation of a circuit judge, said Josh Blackman, a law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston who argued against the legality of the special counsel before her at the hearing last month.

“I’ve rarely seen a district court judge this well prepared,” Mr. Blackman said. “She knew the cases, she knew the statutes and I suspect she had already written most of that opinion already.”

Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor in the Justice Department’s public integrity section, said that even though Judge Cannon’s ruling on Monday was unusual and rejected by other judges, it is also defensible in the context of recent Supreme Court decisions.

He cited the court’s decision granting Mr. Trump substantial immunity for actions he took in office and other decisions as “legal doctrine that upsets settled principles on separations of power and presidential accountability.” In a concurring opinion in the immunity decision, Justice Clarence Thomas had called for re-examining the legality of the appointment of special counsels.

But the hearing and decision on Mr. Smith’s appointment were hardly the only unusual moves by Judge Cannon.

In one of the more striking aspects of her handling of the case, Judge Cannon has ignored a common practice in the Southern District of Florida, where she sits, of trial judges passing off routine motions to the magistrate judge attached to a case.

Judge Cannon has not delegated any motions to the magistrate judge in this case, Bruce E. Reinhart. And Judge Reinhart knows the case well: He approved the search warrant used by the F.B.I. two years ago when agents descended on Mar-a-Lago and hauled away a trove of classified material that is central to the case.

This spring, in another unusual move, Judge Cannon ordered the defense and the prosecution to write dueling instructions for the jury that seemed to take for granted one of Mr. Trump’s most far-fetched defense claims: that he could not be tried for holding on to a trove of classified documents because he had designated the materials in question to be his own personal property under a law known as the Presidential Records Act.

By appearing to adopt the former president’s contentious position on the act, Judge Cannon seemed to be nudging any eventual jurors toward acquitting Mr. Trump or even leaving open the possibility that she herself could acquit the former president near the end of the proceeding by declaring that the government had failed to prove its case.

“I have never seen a case where one would contemplate giving the jury alternative instructions: ‘Decide the case on this hypothetical scenario and then answer the question in an alternative understanding of the law,’” said Margaret Kwoka, a professor at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.

Judge Cannon has rarely issued rulings in the documents case that have been longer than 15 or 20 pages, and has often made decisions without revealing much about her legal reasoning.

But her order on Monday dismissing the case because of Mr. Smith’s appointment was 93 pages and full of a sweeping tour of historical events reaching back through the Watergate affair to the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s.

“It’s significant that this 90-plus-page decision is more erudite with more traditional citations than some of Judge Cannon’s other opinions,” said Mr. Butler, the former federal prosecutor.

Frustrations with Judge Cannon have been mounting for months among members of Mr. Smith’s team, including one of his top deputies, David Harbach, who has twice lost his temper with the judge during hearings in her courtroom.

It is likely that prosecutors will appeal this ruling in particular to the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, which issued the rebuke against Judge Cannon two years ago over her decision about a special master.

Alan Morrison, a professor at George Washington Law School, said the order to dismiss the case on Monday may end up having a positive outcome for Mr. Smith.

“He can now take an appeal and when he prevails, he can ask the court to reassign the case to another judge,” Mr. Morrison said.

“Of course, it was clear a long time ago that she would never allow the case to be tried before Election Day — if ever,” Mr. Morrison added. “And so this order does nothing to impact the trial date adversely, in the real world.”

Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, called Judge Cannon’s decision misguided, citing the decades of examples of attorneys general appointing independent counsels. Mr. Raskin was the lead impeachment manager in Trump’s impeachment trial over his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. “Former President Trump’s actions require accountability — not the overthrowing of the special counsel on dubious constitutional grounds,” Mr. Raskin said.

For additional context, Trump filed his motion to dismiss the documents case based on the constitutionality of the appointment of the special counsel on Feb. 22. Judge Cannon did not hold a hearing on the motion until June 21. Trump’s defense team has filed nine other motions to dismiss for other reasons. Before Monday, she had ruled on only four of them. Critics have pointed to the slow pace of decisions as evidence that she was deliberately trying to prevent the case from going to trial before the election.

Michael Waldman, a constitutional lawyer and president of the Brennan Center for Justice, said Judge Cannon “handled this case like an eager member of Donald Trump’s defense team.” He cited her slow pace in making routine pretrial decisions and her patience for hearing “somewhat outlandish legal arguments” without ever resolving some of them. Monday’s decision, however, he said, “goes beyond what she’s done before.”

Michael Levenson

The government repeatedly tried to get former President Donald J. Trump to return classified documents before he was charged with mishandling the material and obstructing the government’s efforts to reclaim it. Many legal experts believed the case was the strongest of the four against him. But on Monday, a federal judge dismissed the case. Here’s a timeline of the nearly four-year fight over the sensitive documents.

Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor in the Justice Department’s public integrity section, said that even though Judge Cannon’s ruling on Monday was unusual and rejected by other judges, it is also defensible in the context of recent Supreme Court decisions. He cited the court’s decision on presidential immunity, among others.

Josh Blackman, a law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston who argued against the legality of the special counsel before Judge Cannon last month, welcomed the outcome, noting that she had been thorough in issuing her decision. “She walked through every single argument raised by the parties, by the special counsel, by the amicus briefs. And she went through all of them,” he said.

Charlie Savage

Reporting from Washington

Judge Cannon’s ruling rejects precedents from courts far above her own.

Judge Aileen M. Cannon cut against decades of decisions by higher courts in declaring on Monday that the appointment of Jack Smith as a special counsel was illegitimate , throwing out the indictment against former President Donald J. Trump in the classified documents case.

A Trump appointee at the U.S. District Court in South Florida, Judge Cannon had previously shocked legal experts by intervening in his favor during the investigation — only to be reversed in two scathing rulings by a conservative appeals court.

The question now is whether the appeals court will rule that she got the law wrong — again erring in Mr. Trump’s favor — and whether Mr. Smith, when he appeals the decision, will also gamble on asking for the case to be reassigned to another judge.

“This is a very aggressive move on her part,” said Akhil R. Amar, a Yale Law School professor, who said he would not be surprised if she is overturned.

“She’s already been smacked down a couple of times,” he added. “On the other hand, depending on who the panel is, they might say — judges aren’t always the most courageous people in the world — ‘Trump’s going to be president and do we want to take him on?’”

Judge Cannon’s decision upended what had appeared to be settled law, not only dismissing the documents case but also starting a legal battle that could threaten the federal election subversion case against Mr. Trump — and undermine the system for semi-independent investigations of politically powerful people.

She also objected to the Justice Department’s mechanism for funding Mr. Smith’s office. But her main complaint centered on whether he was legally appointed to start.

While Mr. Smith is a former Justice Department prosecutor, he was working for an international court in Europe when Attorney General Merrick B. Garland asked him to handle criminal inquiries into Mr. Trump as special counsel — a prosecutor appointed to supervise a particularly sensitive matter and who wields the powers of a U.S. attorney with a degree of autonomy.

Mr. Smith is also overseeing the federal election subversion indictment against Mr. Trump. When the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority this month bestowed some immunity on Mr. Trump in that case, Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion, questioned the legitimacy of Mr. Smith’s appointment.

No other justice joined his opinion, but the matter is all but certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court. Still, if Mr. Trump wins in November and the issue is still pending, he could use his powers to withdraw the appeal and shut down the case.

Other special prosecutors have been appointed from outside the government, including Leon Jaworski in the Watergate scandal, Lawrence E. Walsh in the Iran-contra affair and Robert S. Mueller III in the inquiry into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Courts nevertheless consistently said their appointments were lawful.

In striking down Mr. Smith’s appointment, Judge Cannon argued that the Supreme Court’s acceptance of Mr. Jaworski’s appointment was unpersuasive and should not be seen as binding. She also rejected appeals court rulings upholding the appointments of Mr. Walsh and Mr. Mueller because they relied upon the Watergate decision without fresh legal analysis.

Under the Constitution, senior officials in the executive branch who exercise significant authority are called “officers.” There are two types. “Principal” officers must be presidentially appointed and confirmed by the Senate. “Inferior” officers, still senior, but more subordinate, generally must be, too, unless Congress passes a law giving a department head the power to appoint them unilaterally.

The Justice Department has taken the position that special counsels are “inferior” officers — a view that Judge Cannon accepted for the purpose of her analysis, although she expressed some doubts, given the sweep of that position’s authority. But she rejected the argument that Congress had given attorneys general the power to appoint them.

The department cited various statutes in which lawmakers have said, among other things, that attorneys general are empowered to appoint officials “to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States ,” and that they may assign any attorney they have specially appointed” under law to “ conduct any kind of legal proceeding, civil or criminal .”

But Judge Cannon said those laws did not authorize the appointment of a special prosecutor who came from outside the government. Others, she noted, have been sitting U.S. attorneys who were Senate-confirmed presidential appointees when they were selected to oversee particularly sensitive cases.

Her decision contradicted what the Supreme Court said in a landmark ruling in 1974 in upholding a subpoena by Mr. Jaworski seeking President Richard M. Nixon’s Oval Office tapes during the Watergate scandal. While a former Justice Department official, Mr. Jaworski was in private practice when the acting attorney general, Robert H. Bork, appointed him to take over the case.

In a unanimous ruling , Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, a Nixon appointee, cited those statutes in broaching Mr. Jaworski’s appointment.

Congress had vested in the attorney general both the “power to conduct the criminal litigation of the United States government” and “the power to appoint subordinate officers to assist him in the discharge of his duties,” the chief justice wrote.

The attorney general, he added, “acting pursuant to those statutes,” had delegated prosecutorial authority to Mr. Jaworski, including the power to contest Nixon’s invocation of executive privilege over the Watergate tapes.

The Justice Department — and appeals courts in other cases — has taken that passage as binding law that settles whether Congress has empowered attorneys general to appoint special prosecutors.

But Judge Cannon insisted that the passage was so-called dicta — stray or passing remarks in a judicial opinion that were tangential to the issues at hand and so do not count as binding law. She noted that Nixon had not contested the validity of Mr. Jaworski’s appointment.

“The issue of the attorney general’s appointment authority was not raised, briefed, argued or disputed before the Nixon court,” she wrote.

Other judges have interpreted the significance of the Supreme Court’s treatment of Mr. Jaworski’s appointment differently.

In 1987, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a challenge to the authority of Mr. Walsh , the independent counsel for the Iran-contra investigation. Mr. Walsh, a former federal judge and senior Justice Department official in the Eisenhower administration, had been a lawyer in private practice at the time of his appointment.

(Congress established the position of “independent counsel” in a 1978 law that lapsed in 1999. Since 1999, a Justice Department regulation has enabled the position of “special counsel.” Both the lapsed law and the regulation say the special prosecutor should come from outside the government, although attorneys general have sometimes sidestepped that part.)

Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel in the Iran-contra case, Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, a Reagan appointee, said the appeals court had “no difficulty concluding that the attorney general possessed the statutory authority to create the Office of Independent Counsel.”

He cited cases dating back to 1954 that showed that an officer may delegate his or her authority to an inferior officer, and said the statutes in which Congress had granted various powers to attorneys general implicitly authorized them to create an Office of Independent Counsel.

In rejecting Judge Ginsburg’s conclusion, Judge Cannon stressed that the appeals court had looked to the passage in the Nixon tapes case she viewed as not binding, observing that, “No analysis of the statutes was provided.”

She also noted that Judge Ginsburg, in a footnote, had said the Supreme Court “presupposed the validity of a regulation appointing the special prosecutor.”

Similarly in 2019, the D.C. Circuit rejected a challenge to the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III , the special counsel investigating ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia at the time of Moscow’s covert operation to help Mr. Trump win. While Mr. Mueller was a former Justice Department official and F.B.I. director, he was retired at the time of his appointment.

The D.C. Circuit panel made clear that it considered the language in the Nixon case as binding precedent, citing the Supreme Court’s 1974 ruling as settling the matter. Judge Cannon noted that this meant the panel did not reanalyze the statutes for itself.

Still, in that case, the plaintiff had argued — as Judge Cannon did on Monday — that the Nixon case language was merely a stray remark because the issue had not been directly presented and analyzed.

But in the Mueller case, the appeals court rejected that claim as unpersuasive. The panel wrote that the attorney general’s statutory authority to delegate responsibility to Mr. Jaworski — “was necessary to the decision that a justiciable controversy existed.”

It added, “The Supreme Court’s quoted statement regarding the attorney general’s power to appoint subordinate officers is, therefore, not dictum.”

In granting Mr. Trump’s request to dismiss his indictment, Judge Cannon once again went in her own direction.

As Republicans hailed the decision, at least one Democrat called for the judge to be removed from the case.

Donald J. Trump and top Republicans celebrated after a federal judge dismissed the classified documents case against the former president in a shocking ruling on Monday, while at least one leading Democrat called for the judge to be removed from the case.

The decision, which is expected to be appealed, arrived on the first day of the Republican National Convention and as the country still reeled from an assassination attempt against Mr. Trump over the weekend.

Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a conservative jurist who was elevated to the federal bench by Mr. Trump in 2020, ruled that the special counsel prosecuting the documents case, Jack Smith, had been improperly appointed by the Justice Department.

In a statement on his Truth Social platform, Mr. Trump asserted that the decision, which rejected the reasoning of decades of federal court decisions, amounted to the dismissal of a “Lawless Indictment.”

Mr. Trump wrote that the decision should be followed “quickly by the dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts,” referring to the three other criminal indictments filed against him last year, as well as civil cases he has faced. He cited the need to “move forward in Uniting our Nation” after the assassination attempt.

Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, urged President Biden to order Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to dismiss the federal cases against the former president. Mr. Biden has not publicly weighed in on the dismissal.

Representative Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican who is closely aligned with Mr. Trump, lavished praise on the judge who made the unorthodox ruling, saying in a statement that the opinion had displayed “courage and wisdom.”

“Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice tried to shred the Constitution with the appointment of their so called ‘special counsel’ Jack Smith as part of their desperate illegal lawfare campaign against President Trump,” Ms. Stefanik added.

At the same time, Democrats and liberal legal scholars excoriated the ruling.

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said in a statement that the decision was “breathtakingly misguided,” declaring that “Judge Cannon cannot handle this case impartially and must be reassigned.”

Judge Cannon, who sits on the bench in the Southern District of Florida, had previously delayed the proceeding. Even before Monday, it was all but certain that the case would not go to trial before the election in November.

Representative Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat who served as lead counsel for his party in the first Trump impeachment trial, said in a statement that the ruling ran roughshod over precedent and “common sense.”

“Judge Cannon is no doubt well aware that the Supreme Court has upheld special counsel appointments time and time again,” Mr. Goldman said in the statement, adding that the decision was the “stuff of a banana republic, not a democracy.”

Trump’s case put the judge, Aileen Cannon, under a spotlight.

When former President Donald J. Trump appointed Aileen M. Cannon to serve as a judge in the Southern District of Florida, very few people knew who she was.

But that changed when she was randomly assigned an unprecedented case involving a former president — the same president who appointed her.

Judge Cannon grew up in Miami with a Cuban mother and American father. She attended Duke University and the University of Michigan Law School, which is when she joined the conservative Federalist Society and went on to clerk for a conservative appeals court judge. She then worked in the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida, most often writing appellate motions. She is married with two children.

In 2020, someone from the office of Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, asked her to apply to be a potential federal judge. And in November 2020, she became one of the youngest judges on the bench in the Southern District of Florida. Though some senators raised questions about the depth of her experience, she was confirmed in a 56-21 vote.

Before she was assigned Mr. Trump’s case, she had little experience with criminal trials. Her impartiality came into question with an early decision she made in the case, insisting that an independent mediator should review the thousands of documents the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized in 2022 from Mr. Trump’s private residence and club in Palm Beach, Fla. That review would have placed the case on hold for months. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned her decision in a swift rebuke .

Since then, questions have swirled about her qualifications to oversee such a high-profile case. In June 2023, she rejected suggestions from two other more senior judges in the district to step aside.

Judge Cannon told senators that she joined the Federalist Society in law school because she enjoyed the “diversity of legal viewpoints” discussed at the group’s meetings and events.

“I also found interesting the organization’s discussions about the constitutional separation of powers, the rule of law and the limited role of the judiciary to say what the law is — not to make the law,” she said in written answers to senators’ questions during her confirmation process.

She is one of four Republican-appointed district judges in Florida who have accepted trips paid for by the Antonin Scalia School of Law, according to financial disclosures through 2022.

Judge Cannon disclosed she attended two conferences in Pray, Montana, paid for by the school. Judges Rodney Smith, Rodolfo Ruiz and Donald Graham also attended one of those years.

Glenn Thrush

Justice Department officials have no immediate plans to seek Cannon’s removal from the case, according to several people familiar with the situation.

Maggie Haberman

Trump is already sending messages to his campaign email list about the dismissal. There is an effort from anti-Trump critics on social media to suggest the decision is not a major development. It may get overturned on appeal, and the case was already grinding slowly, but it’s a dramatic development that even some in Trump’s orbit were surprised by, and it is objectively a significant moment.

Even as other district judges rejected the Trump team’s argument about the legality of the special counsel's appointment and many constitutional scholars believed it was a long shot, Judge Cannon’s willingness to hold hearings on the argument was a signal that she was seriously considering the constitutional argument.

Cannon based her dismissal of the Florida case on the fact that no statute explicitly authorized the appointment or funding of Jack Smith and his deputies. By contrast, the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden, David Weiss, is also the U.S. attorney for Delaware — a Senate-confirmed post. That could make any challenge to the Weiss appointment more difficult, John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney from Virginia, told me.

Attorney General Merrick Garland — faced with investigations into Trump, President Biden and Hunter Biden — has used the special counsel regulation as much as any of his predecessors to provide political cover and insulate the department. It seems likely, though not guaranteed, he will appeal Cannon’s decision. But as of yet the department has declined to comment.

The sweep of Cannon’s decision was a surprise at the Justice Department. The outcome was not. Jack Smith’s team saw the Trump documents case as essentially stalled out for months because of Cannon’s slow pace and had more or less written off the possibility of a trial this year.

Prosectors and Justice Department officials — who had spent the weekend working on the assassination investigation — scrapped their morning schedules to assess the impact of Cannon’s ruling on a range of cases, including Hunter Biden’s looming trial in tax charges in California. Smith’s spokesman said they were not prepared to comment immediately.

Benjamin Protess

My colleagues have written a lot about Judge Cannon’s slow pace, unusual rulings and apparent sympathy for Trump, who appointed her in his final days in office. Today’s ruling will provide her critics more fodder to question both her independence and her abilities.

It’s worth recalling that the classified documents case — in which Trump stands accused of illegally holding on to a trove of some of the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets — was once considered to be the most straightforward of the four criminal cases he has faced. Judge Cannon has now essentially erased it — unless prosecutors can have the indictment reinstated on appeal.

Speaking of an appeal: Prosecutors in Smith’s office have for months been amassing a dossier of what they believe are bad decisions by Judge Cannon. It’s possible —although not yet clear — that along with asking the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to reverse her decision dismissing the documents case, they might also ask the appellate judges to consider removing her from it altogether.

Looking back, Judge Cannon signaled her interest in the issue of Smith’s appointment by holding a hearing last month on the question in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla. The hearing was unusual not only because the issue seemed to have been settled by several previous court decisions, but also because Judge Cannon allowed outside parties who filed friend of the court briefs to address her directly for 30 minutes each during the hearing. That kind of thing almost never happens at the trial court level and is far more common in appellate courts like the Supreme Court.

The documents case in Florida appeared to be one of the strongest criminal cases that Trump was facing. It was based in part on testimony from one of Trump’s former lawyers, who recounted how the former president suggested they hide evidence from investigators. “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” Trump said, according to his lawyer.

Richard Fausset

The ruling should have “zero effect” on the indictment of Trump in Georgia, said Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University. Kreis noted that questions about the appointments clause of the Constitution have no bearing on the Atlanta-based case, which is being prosecuted by Fani T. Willis, the elected district attorney of Fulton County, Ga. But the importance of the Georgia case is now elevated, Kreis said, given the fact that the two federal criminal cases could now be thrown into disarray.

Trump has been saying he is redrafting Thursday's nomination speech to have a different tone after the attempt on his life this past weekend. But if he doesn’t reference the dismissed case, it is hard to imagine that others in their speeches will not.

Judge Cannon’s ruling has no impact on Trump’s criminal conviction in Manhattan, which was brought by a local district attorney, not a special counsel. However, Trump is seeking to have his Manhattan conviction thrown out for separate reasons related to the recent Supreme Court decision granting him immunity from prosecution for official actions he took as president.

Trump had suggested in an interview with the New York Post after the assassination attempt that “we hear” the Justice Department might be preparing to drop the federal indictments against him. That is not what happened here.

For those wondering how Judge Cannon’s decision will affect Trump’s other federal case — the one in which he stands accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election — the short answer is: Let’s wait and see . Trump’s lawyers in the election interference case will no doubt seek to use her ruling to kill that indictment, too. But Smith’s team will surely appeal the ruling, setting up a showdown in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. And the cases may run on separate tracks for a while until the Supreme Court renders its own decision on the issue.