How I fell into a 24 unit apartment complex...
Before I knew about Bigger Pockets I had purchased two houses (both initially as primary residences) and two commercial buildings (the first one where I had my office). But it had been several months and I had several rejected offers and struggles finding another deal. I was getting annoyed and reading up on ideas on how to finance deals and how to find them when I stumbled upon BiggerPockets. Literally the day I registered with BiggerPockets I got a phone call at my office...
I am a lawyer (personal injury aka ambulance chaser) by trade and my CPA called to see if I could handle a landlord tenant case for a client of his with an apartment complex. I told him I didn't and gave him a referral for another lawyer. A minute later I sent back a one sentence email to my CPA saying "...but I will buy the place from him". At that point I knew nothing about the project but small town connections are how I got my other projects. He put me in contact with the owner and it really snowballed from there.
We met and discussed his complex- he said it was 24 units and gave me some back of a napkin numbers. I did some more research on the property and it looked really good. He had sold it on a contract before and had to take it back from that buyer 5 years ago. He had subsequently cleaned it up- both physically and improving the tenants.
Apparently I could not have picked a better time to ask about buying the apartments. He had a problem tenant which I knew. But he had been retired for several years and it seemed like a good time to get out of the apartments. Then on top of that his wife was having some health issues and it just seemed providential that I came along at just that moment.
We both came to the same price and then they decided they didn't really even want as much money down as I was offering- they didn't want the tax hit. So they ended up carrying nearly the entire contract because all they wanted was the income monthly from me.
Long story short, 2 days shy of my 36th birthday I closed on a 24 unit complex less than two months after I had ever heard of it. My favorite part of the story is that it wasn't for sale.
Another fun part is that I ended up using a line of credit for the down payment so I literally have no cash out of pocket on this one. This is actually kind of deceptive because I have another property I am in the middle of refinancing and this will clear out that line of credit almost immediately- but still I used my other property to buy this one... so its not that deceptive.