I don’t care about fairness

[Shiloh Lundahl]

Over the weekend I saw a property come up in Casa Grande, Arizona which is an area where I buy properties and then I will sell them on a lease with the option to buy.

The property was a 2 bedroom 1 bath home a little over 1000 ft.². I figured if I could add another bedroom and another bathroom, then I can increase the value substantially. It was up for sale on the market for $100,000 as a 2 bed 1 bath home. I figured that I could probably put $60,000 into it and then it should be worth about $240,000 as a 3 bedroom 2 bath home.

So on Monday, I called the number for the person who listed it. I told him that I had several rentals in the area and I gave him an offer for $100,000 with $20,000 nonrefundable earnest money deposit and close in a week. He said he would get back to me and when he did, he said that he had gotten multiple offers that day that were all $10,000 or more higher than my offer. He said he wanted to be fair and give me an opportunity to send in my highest and best offer. I told him that I didn’t care about fairness. And in fact, I didn’t want things to be fair. I told him that I wanted an unfair advantage and then I didn’t wanna be in a bidding war.

So I adjusted my offer to $105,000 and found out that he was doing something similar to a novation were even though he didn’t own the property he could market the property for sale. So I told him that rather than closing on the property, he could just assign it over to me like a wholesaler and that would save him closing costs. Also, since I went directly to him, I wouldn’t be using a realtor and the seller wouldn’t have to pay for my realtor fees.

Later in the day, I got an email from him accepting my offer even though it was lower than other people’s offers. What I’ve learned about real estate investing and business in general is the idea of fairness is completely subjective and what’s fair to one person may not look fair to another. There’s too many factors that can come in into play. So don’t focus on the idea of fairness. Instead, I focus on the idea of maximizing an unfair advantage in order to win at real estate investing and in business.

Now don’t take this to the extreme. I’m not advocating for doing things illegal, immoral, or unethical. I’m talking about leveraging your unique ability and marketing it to make it look like you are the best choice.

What do you think with regards to fairness in real estate investing?

[V.G Jason]

Brag all you want about being unfair, but don't cry about it when someone treats you unfairly too.