My first deal almost didn't happen

Back in 2002, I was in the midst of growing my very tiny startup in the online marketing world, and not knowing if the Internet business would be viable in the long term, I was exploring other options.

After reading more than a few books, squeezing out any knowledge from online sites, and even paying $30 for a how-to guide on lease options, I set out to conquer the real estate world using the Internet as my marketing funnel. 

To make a long story short, my online and offline marketing efforts weren't working for me. and after several months, I was planning to shut down my real estate efforts and focus on my other business ventures, when just a day or two before I took my online content down, I had a motivated seller contact me. 

His was a common story. He was married and on active duty, but he got assigned elsewhere and was going through a divorce. It didn't help that his house was in western Washington, and he was in Louisiana.

After much discussion, I found out what he needed to get out of the deal, negotiated the terms of the offer, and shopped it around. I found a couple of interested investors who wanted to rehab the house and flip it. I assigned the contract in exchange for a promise by the buyer to pay me $2,000 for my services after the fact. 

                                         My first deal in Bremerton, WA

The highlight of this experience was that during the entire process, I never laid eyes on the property, and had not met either the seller, or the buyers face-to-face. Several weeks after the sale, I did a drive by of the place and happened to be there when the buyers were in the middle of rehabbing.

While my net after expenses made my first deal worthwhile financially, I was making way more money with much less effort in my online business, so chasing the second deal wasn't really getting me excited. I decided to put real estate aside for a while, or so I thought.

Find out how I found new motivation to nail down deal #2 in the next article.