One That Got Away

I am brand new to this whole real estate investor thing. In fact, I am in the "just looking and analysing properties" stage until I can get a little more money saved up so I can get an FHA loan. Like Brad often says in his posts and webinars: "If you can't buy a property right now, just analyse them to get the practice in so when you are ready you can take over the world!" ( I might be paraphrasing a little, but that is generally what I think he is trying to say).

So, I've been looking at properties with my partner on the weekends ,doing some Driving for Dollars in the Cabarrus County area of North Carolina, and we have been having fun doing it.

A couple of weeks ago we came across this property in Concord, NC: a three bedroom, two bath, 1,700 square foot property that I actually liked. Though we couldn't get inside to take a look around, from what we could see through the windows and on the Zillow site, it looked remodeled on the inside: new paint, clean, tile floors, open spaces; and looked nice on the outside as well.

Asking price was $44,000 and Zillow estimated it to be worth $86,000. Not only was it a nice house, but it was in the price range I was looking for.

This morning I opened up my Zillow account and what did I see? This house just sold...for $9,000.

What? It was early so I thought I must have missed something, so I took another drink of coffee and looked again. 

$9,000.

"Holy crap!" I yelled, and my partner came running into the kitchen. "What's wrong?" he wanted to know. "did you just now realise that I ate the last bagel yesterday?"

I showed him the Zillow page (as many times as I've mentioned them, you would think that Zillow is a sponsor or something. They aren't). He plopped down in the chair. " Holy Crap!" he yelled.

I could have come up with $9,000. I have a $10,000 limit on my American Express card! 

We both sat there dumbfounded. How does something like this happen, we both wondered out loud. why didn't we put in a bid like that?

So I guess the lesson learned here is that while doing analysis on properties is a good way to get started, it also wouldn't hurt to throw a bid out there from time to time. Even if you don't think you would have a snowballs chance in hell of getting that property. You just never know why a property owner wants to sell their property or how low they will go to do so. The only way you can know is to throw out a bid and see what comes back.

Lesson learned.