Are You Doing What You Always Did?

 

As I’m writing this, it’s the beginning of October. That means three quarters of 2026 are over, and we have but three months left.

What are you going to do about it?

 

Now, I didn’t mean for that to sound ominous. Instead, I meant for it to be a call to action. We still have three months left, and a lot can be done. And of those things, I believe reflection and planning should be paramount.

 

The reason is that 2026 has been a strange year — at least for us.

 

We have had things happen like being part of legal actions over property disputes where the chain of title was confounded and finding an attorney to take the case was difficult.

 

We have had small-town leadership deny us the use of our property, causing us to completely change what we intended to do with it. They even issued a new rule that we had to adhere to that was not written in any ordinance.

 

I didn’t know they could do that.

But after going through it, I now fully understand the importance of voting in local elections and paying attention to what your local government is doing. They have a lot of power over you and what you do with your property.

 

This year, we have also watched property values soften as competition from new construction has affected the resale market. And we have seen buyer uncertainty rise amid wars, gas prices, inflation and interest rates, seemingly leading to dramatically longer days on market than in past years.

 

Longer hold times mean more interest and holding costs paid on vacant houses. Couple that with dropping the price to get a property sold, and projected profits begin to dwindle — all while the prices of materials and labor continue to increase.

 

I’m not going to lie. Flipping in 2026 just hasn’t been very good for us.

 

But we have had some positive lessons.

 

We successfully bought a piece of land with an old single-wide on it that we demolished and replaced with a new double-wide. That property sold well and fairly quickly.

We learned a lot while doing it — both what to do and what not to do.

 

And I can say that education feels a lot better when you actually make a profit.

 

Anyway, as I have been thinking about this past year, as well as how 2025 went, I have begun asking the question, “What do we need to do differently?”

 

Along with that, I’m asking another question:

 

What do we do if we can no longer flip?

 

There’s an old saying that goes something like, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.”

 

That is normally used as a self-help thought to teach you to change your methods if you aren’t happy with your results. But in business, it is something worth considering, too.

 

As the market changes — and changing it is — you need to ask yourself whether you are getting the results you want and need.

 

In other words, is what you are doing still working in 2026?

 

If the answer is no, you have to be willing to change course — even if you have a lot of time and money invested in the old way.

 

As the market changes, you have to change with it. Those who don’t may be the ones who go down with the proverbial ship.

 

So, what are we doing differently?

 

For one, I’m revisiting strategies that worked in the past.

 

For instance, we’re buying our first mobile home located on a rented lot in almost a decade. Once upon a time, Lonnie Deals were one of our main investment strategies.

 

If you don’t know what a Lonnie Deal is, it’s where you buy a used mobile home on a rented lot. You pay cash for the home, do little or nothing to it, and then offer it for sale with owner financing in place.

 

Lonnie Deals can produce great cash flow and double- or even triple-digit returns. And for us, they were the single most important investment strategy for getting my family out of the rat race.

 

The only reason we stopped doing them was because we moved into land-home deals, rental houses and flips.

 

But now that the cost of entry into other types of real estate has gotten so high, and the volume of new construction in our area continues to grow, this affordable-housing strategy is something worth revisiting.

 

At least for us it is.

Change is uncomfortable. But when it comes to change, my teacher Peter Fortunato says, “You have to evolve, or die.”

 

So, as you enter this last quarter of 2026, take a hard look at what you have been doing and ask yourself whether you’re getting the results you want.

 

If not, maybe it’s time to pivot to a different strategy.

 

And if you do it quickly enough, there are still three months left in 2026 to enjoy some success.

 

But if you choose to keep doing what you’ve always done, don’t be surprised if you keep getting what you’ve always got.

 

Joe and Ashley English buy houses and mobile homes in Northwest Georgia. For more information or to ask a question, go to www.cashflowwithjoe.com or call Joe at 678-986-6813.