Endevor 1 - Remote Wholesaling and the Lessons I learned

When I took my classes 7 years ago I had a great plan. It was probably not all that different than what many of you have had. Wholesale properties until you raise enough money then do rehabs or buy and holds to start building your wealth. 

I started working remotely in Memphis, TN. I found a realtor down there who was very good. The way the plan went was that I was to send letters of intent to tons of listed properties using the power of numbers I would get enough responses to provide for my inventory. The Realtor was not comfortable with the Letters Of Intent so we settled on an abbreviated version of the standard purchase contract as used in most real estate firms. My first offer was countered and re-countered but the 2nd counter was never accepted. Later on I had 4 sellers accept my offer all at once. I was REALLY excited. In a nutshell I had put a typical "subject to approval of bids by buyers and buyers partners to be completed within 14 days." So I sent down $550 in earnest monies and spent about $200 on marketing and placed an ad into every newspaper and online site I could think of. 

I was still very hopeful. I was thinking people would call and I would have them schedule with my Realtor when to look at the property. Then I got the call from my Realtor. He said "Oh, by the way I am going on vacation for the next several days." I asked him. "Well isn't there someone in your office that can show the properties?" He curtly responded "the amount of commission on these properties is so low I don't think any of the other agents in my firm would want to waste their time." I was terrified but I pressed on thinking. "Ok, no problem we will just cue them on the day after my Realtor comes back from vacation." I didn't get a single call on any of the properties the entire time my Realtor was on vacation. I even lowered the assignment fees to under $500 per property, still nothing. 

At this point I figured I must have bid too high on the properties and thought I am still in my 14 day clause I am going to try and back out of this and see if I can get my earnest money back. Well needless to say my Realtor was MAD!! So angry that he told me from now on he was going to charge me $50 for each offer I put in. Well that put an end to that little venture quick. The worst part about it is that 1 day after I backed out of the deals I had a buyer call that was interested. The next day I had another buyer who was willing to take all 4 sight unseen. To this day I still kick myself for chickening out.

Through this I learned 3 valuable lessons.

Lesson 1 - If you are using a realtor make sure he isn't going anywhere during the due diligence period.

Lesson 2 - 14 business days is way too short.

Lesson 3 - Carry it out to the bitter end. You never know what may happen in those last few days.