Why I evaluate deals differently for myself than I do for clients

[JS Burnett]

When I buy a property for myself there is no budget for the evaluation. I will spend whatever it takes in time and money to know everything about that structure before I close. Every system tested. Every problem documented. Every solution priced down to the labor and material line item.

Not because I enjoy the process. Because I have learned, expensively, what happens when you don't.

Here is how I actually think about what I do. I am not evaluating a deal. Deals are financial abstractions. I am evaluating a physical structure with real problems that have real solutions that have a real price attached to them in time and money. My job, when I am the buyer, is to know every single one of those prices before my capital is committed and my leverage is gone.

After closing you have neither full information nor full leverage. You have a building and whatever surprises it was hiding.

When I work for someone else the process I recommend is identical. The commitment to it is not always shared.

Some clients understand immediately that the evaluation is not an expense, it is the only moment in the transaction where you can negotiate from complete information. They invest in it fully and the process works exactly as it should.

Others hear my recommendations and assume I am padding scope. More hours. More fees. A consultant doing what consultants do.

I understand the skepticism. I just disagree with the math behind it.

The evaluation I am recommending is not a cost center. It is price discovery, finding the real number before you commit to the wrong one. Every problem we do not find before closing becomes a change order, a surprise, or a loss you absorb after the leverage window has closed.

The clients who push back on the evaluation process tend to find out what the real costs are. Just on the contractor's timeline instead of theirs. At that point the budget is set, the contract is signed, and the only number that matters is whatever it costs to fix what nobody looked for before closing.

I do not shortcut my own evaluations. I have never once regretted being thorough before a purchase.

I have regretted shortcuts every single time.