Here’s my success story. The story began when I read Robert Kiyosaki’s book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, five years ago, and it ended three weeks ago with my first “easy” deal. (Oh yeah, and dozens of hours pouring over CRE Online Main Real Estate Forum posts.)
I am still very green at doing deals. To date I have done more real estate courses than deals–four deals done and at least six real estate courses bought through CRE Online! I guess I am a slow learner, but I know that I will succeed.
The call came from the less than twenty bandit signs I put out. A young woman called with an old house she had inherited that was livable but needed insulating, new wiring, new plumbing, a kitchen, and new siding. The young lady knew the place needed work but didn’t want to do it and didn’t want the house.
I knew she was motivated to get rid of the house when she said that if I didn’t take the place off her hands she would put an ad in the local paper that read: “Free House.” So she gave me the house, and I paid her $1 for it. She was relieved to be rid of the old place. I ran ads in two local papers that cost me around $70 for both ads. And I did a title search that cost me $145.
The ad read:
or $14,500 cash “As Is”
The phone didn’t ring off the hook, but I did get a few bites. I even called some people off my buyer’s list and offered them first crack at it. Three days after running the ads and showing the house while I was cleaning it out, I had my buyer. I even put a lock box on the house but never had time to give out the combination or finish cleaning the place out.
My new buyer said he would finish the cleaning job. Thank you, Mr. Buyer. The buyer didn’t want to make the $1,000 deposit on the spot saying that he wanted to be sure the title search came up clean. But, as we spoke a second set of potential buyers came in.
I’d made an appointment to show the house to other people at the same time. Thank you, Peter Conti and David Finkel for the double or triple booking tip! Having those two buyers competing made all the difference. The hesitant buyer quickly went into his pocket for $400 cash and wrote me a personal check for $600 on the spot.
I didn’t budge on my cash price (which I learned was probably a little low). I will close in a week for the balance of $13,500! Not bad for three days work! That’s $14,500 on this one little deal minus about $400 in clean up and legal costs. It really is a big deal for me though. You see, the last job I worked at didn’t pay that much for an entire year!
I will do many more deals, I know. Each deal gives me a new confidence and humility because I know that I could not have done this without the help from others and CRE Online as a resource! Thank you, CRE Online! My life has changed forever because of what you do!