Doing Lots Of Deals - How I Got Into It

It took me decades to decide to do one real estate deal. The first real estate book I ever bought was Nothing Down, by Robert Allen, once a well-known real estate guru who has since become somewhat controversial. Every night, I would watch Carleton Sheets on the infomercials talking about buying real estate with no money down. It sounded plausible to be able to do a no money down deal, until you actually tried to do one. Then, you ran into sellers who wanted earnest money, downpayments, proof of funds, cash transactions, pre-approval letters - the very kinds of financial resources that someone like me who was not knowledgeable about credit, loans, and deal structures would not have and wouldn't know how to get. So my real estate investing dreams languished for literally decades, dashed on the altar of seller skepticism. 

Then, more than two decades after I first read  Allen's book and started listening to the Carlton Sheets/Tom Vu/Ron Legrand/Dave Del Dotto/ parade of late-night infomercials, I went to work for a non-profit as a housing resource center coordinator. In that job, I dealt with homeowners, developers, landlords and investors. I worked on foreclosures, housing subsidies, and acquisition/preservation of multi-unit buildings. I helped a friend found a contracting firm. And the opportunity presented itself to me to go to a 16-week developr workshop, where I was introduced to and learned the strategies of putting deals together. I learned how real estate deals are created, developed and financed. And I learned something else. I learned I understood how to put deals together and how to do acquisitions and financing. I met developers, investors and property owners who shared their deal-making strategies. And I learned that real estate deals are created, not made, and that successful deals require creative and out of the box thinking. 

Then suddenly within the last year, deals for acquring dozens or hundreds of units started being presented to me. I learned how to look at and evaluate properties in a deal for value, and that if you buy in bulk, everything is cheaper. I also learned an old real estate truth: you make your money when you buy the property. And so I now find myself negotiating deals for dozens and even hundreds of properties at once. I am asking myself, what changed in me? How was I able to transition from never even doing one deal a year to doing hundreds of deals a month? What changed were two aspects: my knowledge base and my thought process. I believe that you do what you believe you can. I also believe that whatever you want to learn how to do, you can learn. If you don't have the knowledge or the money, someone else does and many times will partner with you and share the knowledge if you ask. The Bible says you have not because you ask not. I have learned the truth of that statement in my own real estate projects./

And so I researched 25 properties in Detroit and made an offer for all 25 for $195,000, which was accepted. I made an offer for 134 properties at one time in Chicago which we are now acquiring. And just last week, one of my contacts presented a list of 584 more properties  in Detroit. Now are all of these properties great deals? No. Many have tax issues, require extensive rehab and so forth. But when you buy in bulk, you can buy at a discount and then sell for just a bit more than you paid for it and still  make a profit. I am sharing this experience here because I am learning about dealmaking and about making deals happen. Our minds are the roadblock that keep us from conceiving and achieving dreams and goals. Remember, it's not impossible. You do what you think you can. And to achieve it, you've got to believe it.