“Buy it Wrong Sell it Wrong, Buy it Right Sell it Right”

I have been buying, renovating and reselling homes for more years than I care to admit. My philosophies are different than most, so I’ll share one of them with you. I am not about location, location, location, but rather price, price and price.

I have purchased many homes in not so great locations, because the price was so right that we could afford to do renovations and be able to offer the home as such a good price, that location was not the major consideration. The reality was that we could make the same amount of profit that it was worth taking this risk.

When it came to buying property, we always looked for 3-4 bedroom homes, but this one time I purchased a 2 bedroom ranch style home and in not the best location, but the price was so good, I bought the property anyway. If hind sight was 20/20, not a smart idea.

As it turned out the property ended up needing a new furnace (not budgeted for), had extensive mold in the bathroom that need extensive restoration (not planned for), had to put a liner in the chimney, because the furnace now was gas instead of oil (not planned for) and needed a new roof as water was coming into the bathroom walls (not planned for). I’m sure there were a few other things.

I let my emotions get in the way, so the property was listed $20,000 above what it was truly worth, knowing full well that even if there was someone crazy enough to overpay for the property, it would never appraise.

Nine months later the property was sold and we lost $15,000. That was the best possible outcome. The property was shown over 50 times, there were 9 different offers, close to what I ended up accepting for the property.

Now can we all agree that I would have been much smarter to the price the property correctly and take my loss instead of waiting 9 months? This is a perfect example of ego taking over, instead of allowing common sense to direct me to a better result. The loss would have been the same, but would have gotten out of a bad deal so much quicker.

Whenever I tell this story, I remember something that my Dad would always tell me. “THE BEST WAY OUT OF A BAD DEAL, IS QUICK.”

image courtesy of nokhoog_buchachon/freedigitalphotos.ne