“You situate yourself under the table not because food is going to fall to the floor, but in case it does.”
This was in 2005, and houses were tough to get. We looked at one that I knew was doable, so I said, “So, are we ready to write a contract?”
Just doing my job, but Sonny said: “Wow. He’s a closer.”
And I thought: “Wow. He’s a cooler.”
I was wrong, though. Sonny caught on quick, and by the next morning he was ready to buy, too.
He and Tony found a FSBO that was holding an open house. Sonny was definitely interested, but they couldn’t figure the seller out.
They asked me to meet him and in six questions I sussed out the scam: The seller was a seminar investor who would get pre-foreclosure borrowers to put him on title, promising to help, then essentially sell their homes out from under them. He was so cagey because he lived in fear of his past victims. He worked out of a Post Office box and met people in parking lots. No kidding.
Those six questions set my star above all others in Sonny’s eyes. We bought the house, and I had to write my own sales commission into the deal, since the property was not listed.
He moved his mother into that house, and she was there until she had to move on. I sold it when she did, and Sonny did all right. Not a killing, but all right – for a house that almost fell into his lap.
And the next one literally did. I was working in a house we had just acquired for another investor when a neighbor popped in and asked, “Are you a real estate agent?”
It can happen – bread cast upon the waters. And it gets better:
The neighbor was Joe, and Joe said, “Can you find a buyer for my house? I don’t want a lot of hassle, I just want to get out from under it and get back to Texas.”
This was in 2010, and we were buying in earnest for a lot of investors, including Tony. I represented Sonny in the sale, not Joe, but Joe left town a happy man.
So Sonny had another house fall into his lap.
We just sold that one, and the cash rained down from the skies: Sonny sold that house for almost three times what he paid for it – except he bought it leveraged, so the cash-on-cash was eye-popping. Leased almost eleven years with no vacancy. Depreciation, which I’m not involved in, but I never tire of talking about. And we moved the money by 1031 exchange, so the capital gains taxes are deferred.
I have no end of extra-MLS war stories. I just sold the second of two rental homes I helped buy for Mike, a cash investor who rescued failing short sales at the last minute by nomination: He literally agreed to the terms in place to get the houses without the months of waiting. I almost never do dual-agency, but when I do, it’s investor-to-investor, with a point discounted to each for indemnification – but these are deals you will never know about, since they’re never listed.
The point? There is more to lands and lots than is known to your MLS, Horatio. Fortune favors the well-prepared.
In other news (not a lot, alas):
Joel Kotkin: The American City’s Long Road to Recovery. Cities exist(ed) to solve a short-haul communications problem the internet obviates. There is no reason for them to recover.
The Federalist: Whistleblower: Coca-Cola Uses Antiracist Training That Tells Employees ‘Try To Be Less White’. The difference between this systemically-mandated racism and Redfin’s? Coke is not fiduciary to its consumers.
FEE.org: Public School Enrollment Plummets as Private Schools See Gains.
